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While Atlanta is not a big Marine town, it’s time for people who are going to use the docks here to start to learn the rules.  If they don’t, someone could literally get hurt.  Here then, is some basic etiquette for using dock space.

1. The people who work on and maintain the docks have first right to them.  That means at location such as Azalea Park, Crew Sculls get first dibs.
2. Next come non-powered boaters: canoes, kayaks, and rafts.  While slower, they’re being controlled by people, not engines and come next.
3. Powered marine vehicles that are picking up or dropping off folks come next.  If there are no cleats at your dock, you perhaps should not plan to be there long.
4. If you have nothing to do with any marine vehicle, you’re lowest on the totem poll and when anyone else needs dock space, your job is to get out of the way.

Further, some more basic rules for those “just visiting” and with no real business on the dock

1. Watch your kids.  Really.  Even with something as simple as a kayak, if your child’s fingers get caught between the shell and the dock, they could break.  Imagine what happens when it’s an outboard motor.  If there is a boat nearby, your kids should be no more than arms length from you.
2. Picnics are great… at picnic tables!  Nearly every park by the water has these.  You don’t need to sit on the dock and eat.  If a number of boats come quickly your food will get wet, your beer will spill and it will be your fault.
3. Fishing from Docks has a long tradition, but you also need to be ready to get out of the way.  If your hook catches a boat, you could lose your equipment, or if your stubborn, you could be pulled in to the water.  Again, this is on you and not the boater.  If you have kids, remind them that casting at people is both rude and dangerous
4. Don’t feed the wildlife on the docks.  Yes, the geese, the ducks, snakes, bats, fish, and otters love the food (yes, there really are otters).  Feeding them on the docks puts boaters at risk and leaves the dock a mess.  You’re not going to clean it up, so don’t leave it for others.  Feed the animals from the shore, not the dock.
5. Don’t try to help unless you’ve been asked.  Most boaters know their boats and how to launch them.  If someone needs help they’ll ask for it.
6. Don’t run toward the arriving boat unless you’re a passenger.  Give passengers a wide berth to get from the deck to the dock.
7. You’re a guest.  Be smart.  How would you want strangers to treat your driveway?

For more on Georgia Boating Laws and Regs, click here!

Atlanta is still not a 24 hour city.  Compared to other cities, there are some amenities we need and some changes that should occur.

Atlanta is still a place where Dunkin Donuts closes.  The Brookhaven Dunkin’ Donuts is a mile from Oglethorpe University, yet by 10:30, it’s closed.  Don’t they know if they throw a wifi router in the place and advertise they have access, the place will be packed 24/7?  Worse than that, we don’t have Tims!

The same goes for Starbucks.  Some are closed by 7.  Others by 10.  What’s with that?  There is not a single 24 hour Starbucks in Fulton or Dekalb County.

More Trader Joes are great, but as the NFT Atlanta points out, we like chain stores a little too much.  Other cities have gourmet stores that largely stock local product.  The closest we have is Alon’s.

We lack late night gourmet food.  Only Atkins Park is still serving ‘better than bar food’ on a Tuesday at 1 AM.  Yes, there are more diners, and some pubs still serving, but when you need a 1 AM business dinner, you’re left with Atkins Park or Chinese.

There are too few independent book stores in town, and none of them have a full service restaurant or bar in them.  Someone is missing the opportunity to make some serious cash.

We have too many governments and that is going to quash our regional effectiveness.  While other cities are in uni-gov mode, we’re splintering even more.

At least 3 of our major sports venues are inaccessible directly by subway.  Further, none of them have won a Championship this century!

MacDonald’s here do not serve Newman’s Own Organic Coffees.

One of the better midrange chocolate companies does its manufacturing here and most Atlantans don’t know because local stores don’t carry Flyer Bars!

The Museums around here have no free day, and rather than showing off the great art they own and acquiring more, they rent art from other museums!

Okay… enough snarking, but after visiting other cities, it’s clear we’re slipping.  Still, there is hope.  Housing is surely plentiful.  The city of Atlanta was truly strengthened by the Olympics.  People here are ambitious and want to get things done.  We have Atlantix.

One wonders, however, how long Metro Atlanta can survive until the lack of affordable starter homes, public transportation, and bickering between the various counties cripples the place.

Dave-FM is running a promotion encouraging people to choose the “Top 30 Albums” of the past 30 years. Good luck with that. Here’s the problem. The chances that they will create a list that means anything are almost nil. First, they have to define what is meant by “The Top”. If they mean purely by sales, be prepared to hear a lot of Michael Jackson and Celine Dion.

If they mean by cultural influence, their going to hit ‘The Velvet Underground’ problem. (For those of you unfamiliar… The initial run of the Velvet’s first record sold about 6,000 copies, but allegedly, “everyone who bought the record started a band”.) It’s unlikely that a choice left up to people will be able to properly address the albums that are heard mostly by other musicians. This is why I guarantee there will be an Indigo Girls album on the list, but I promise that there will not be a Roches record. Even if you asked just the musicians in town, they’re all going to disagree. The albums Ludacris thinks are the most influential won’t be the same as those on the list of Aaron Shust.
The Guardian tried this several years ago. They included the Spice Girls record.

It would be better if Dave-FM had said “Hey! We’re compiling a list of what our listeners think are the most important records”. Instead they are claiming that theirs will be the “quintessential list that defines the 30 Biggest Albums of the Last 30 years.”
There are, perhaps, half a dozen folks in town who could properly answer this question with any authority. I bet Dave-FM has not asked them.

Alvaro Alvillar is a stunning success.  How does he know?  The cops want shut his work down.  Anytime your art scares the police, you’ve succeeded in raising the issue your art sought to raise.  The police officers here are dead wrong.  Being a police officer means having to accept whatever the world throws at you without feeling or emotive response.  You’re there to serve and protect, not be an art critic.

Are the police valuable community assets?  Yes.  They have a tough job and generally deserve community support?  Yes.  This however, is a case in which they are their families are not under any threat.  Officers and members of the benevolent association however think they should be able to limit what an artist has to say within an art gallery and that’s flat wrong.  Even if the art portrayed the police in a highly negative light, they should only criticize it as citizens.  Write a letter to the editor.  Write your own blog entry.  However, International Brotherhood of Police Officers puts the imprimatur of law enforcement behind it and that is unacceptable.

Now, on to the art itself.  This is not the first time Alvillar has done a flag piece.  He did one last year in Dalton.  This piece is titled “Formula for Hate” The pieces are a series of US flags with inscriptions.  Read across the inscriptions of the various flags are two questions:”Politically its OK to hate the white man” and “Is it OK for me to hate if Ive been a victim” [sic].   So, through use of the flags, one can surmise that Alvillar is examining his statements and questions in the context of the American field which the flags represent.  Second, one can see that he intends the statements as a ‘formula for hate’.  Given that, a person might well surmise that Alvillar himself believes that victimhood is not a justification for hate, nor is it politically okay to hate white people.

The questions, however, are ones the permeate our society and might resonate particularly among folks in the city.  Atlanta is undergoing a major racial shift.  It’s becoming whiter and more Hispanic despite having an African American power structure.  We also live in a time when members of any given group have been the victim.  Indians, Korean, Serbs, Columbians, New Englanders, Africans, Jews, Syrians, and on and on and on have all been victims because of where they were born, what they look like, or what creed they follow.   No one has a monopoly on victim hood and no one has a monopoly on hate.

If we want to be a world class city, it’s time to grow up and accept that a variety of viewpoints are out there.  People are going to have to learn to argue these points through a continued rhetorical and reasoned argument.  The clash of ideas is important and it’s better to let all the ideas, even the dumb ones face the light of day and stand scrutiny rather than trying to use the power of the state to forcibly remove them.

For those with health insurance be glad, for the clinics of Metro Atlanta may be more than you can face.

A friend who has lost her insurance went to the North Dekalb Health Center for help.  She was referred by Metro Counseling Services for assistance in getting psychiatric and medication assistance.  She filled out the inventory, told them about her situation and warned them that she was very low on medication.  For those of you unfamiliar with psychiatric problems, it’s not a good idea to go without your medicine or to try to self diagnose.  A doctor’s help and guidance is vital.

The office staff took her seriously and asked her to return Monday after the weekend so she could be seen.  The staff might get the seriousness of this, but the Doctor on duty didn’t.  After she waited an hour and a half, the doctor on duty told her that she was not welcome and that he would not see her.  When she asked if anyone canceled, he acknowleged that a person had canceled but that her lack of medicine and the dire consequences she has been suffering “were not my damn problem”, but her own and that she would have to make a formal appointment and come back.

She left shaken, angry, insulted, and scared.  So should the rest of us.  It’s one thing to be busy.  It’s another thing to be rude and to not care about your patient and the public safety.  CEO Vernon Jones has stressed customer service among his employees and has mandated training for them.  Apparently that did not apply to the doctors.  Moreover, this doctor is letting someone who has serious psychological problems lapse in her ability to get medication (she’s willing to pay for it, BTW, but a prescription is rightly needed here).  Common sense says that’s bad practice.

Even if today was an amazingly busy day, simple decency tells one that the doctor should have asked how many days of medication she had left.  Then he should have found a day to make the necessary assessments prior to her running out.  Instead, he threw her back on the street after the staff of the office had recommended that she come in.  Where is the concern for the patient?  Where is the concern for the public as the doctor now is aware she’s almost out of medication and will be among Dekalb Country residents without it?  We, as tax payers, have the right to expect more.

The question is what the county is prepared to do?  There will always be public service and customer service mistakes.  People get it wrong and blow their tops.  However, this is a pretty serious glitch and if the county is smart, it will address it.  The county needs to assure that the requisite facilities, resources, and training exists to make sure that citizens who come in for services are well treated.  No one should be treated with diffidence by a county employee and when the person needs assistance to keep them and others safe, a priority flag ought go up.

There are another separate set of issues here too.  First is that medical care is lacking for those without insurance and we need a way to make access to the system better.  Both market and government solutions can be part of the picture.  Second, it also says something about the mindset of some of Atlanta’s doctors.  Namely, that they have dissociated themselves from the actual needs of their patients.  They are not problem solvers who want to help folks, but rather are proceduralists who believe that their job is to perform a task and get paid for it.

Of course there are really patient oriented doctors in town, Dekalb County just needs to get them into medical centers and give them the needed resources so that everyone gets first rate attentive care.

Where are the cops? At what point do we, as citizens, get to say that a person is just too stupid to drive?

I saw such a person today. She was driving her towncar and talking on the cell phone with one hand…. and using her oxygen mask in the other. Not kidding. How can such a person reasonably control their car? Why should such a person even be allowed to own a car, let alone drive?

I called public safety, who did not want to seem to have much to do with it. The police are supposed to be stopping impaired drivers! Where were they?

Thursday is by far the best day to be a newspaper reader in Atlanta.  It’s the day when the new Creative Loafing comes out, which, page for page, is the best written newspaper in Georgia.  It’s also the best day to get the Atlanta Constitution.

Everyone in a one paper town criticizes their paper, and the Constitution certainly  deserves its fair share, but on Thursdays, it’s a paper worth reading.  Why? It’s the day with the highest signal to noise ratio.  First, the Access Atlanta section isn’t bad.  It’s no substitute for the Atlanta Performs website or even Atlanta Planit, but it’s certainly a pretty good guide to upcoming events.  If you’re a tourist, it’s really good stuff.

Next, it’s the day when the local sections come out.  These sections let smaller organizations get media coverage that matters locally but would be lost on the region and they do tackle some weighty local issues.  Ben Smith continues to do yeoman’s work in Gwinnett after covering Dekalb for years.  It’s also a day when they actually publish theatre reviews!  Actual reviews!  If publish three reviews of shows a week, the paper would gain popularity.  Regrettably, the editors there don’t always see the desire for quality theatrical reviews.

The best thing however, is that Jay Bookman’s columns are on Thursdays.  He’s the best columnist the paper has had since Marilyn Geewax moved to Washington.  He’s thoughtful, practical, and engaged.  Hopefully the paper is grooming him either to become the head of the Editorial Page or even better, to become the Editor-in-Chief.  Either way, his columns are worth reading as, on this day, is the whole paper.

Cynthia Tucker, normally a courageous editorial writer who tells Atlanta citizens what they don’t want to hear, has suddenly become dainty when riding MARTA:

Two weeks ago, after a pleasant, hassle-free trip to Hartsfield-Jackson on MARTA, I gave some thought to taking the train more often. Right now, my car is in the shop. Couldn’t I take MARTA rather than renting a car?

No, I won’t. It gets dark early, and I don’t take MARTA after the sun goes down. I don’t feel safe.

My response:

I’ve ridden MARTA for years. At one time, I used to live in Smyrna, and it was faster for me to park at the Holmes station and ride MARTA to Five Points from there — never had an incident beyond some guy selling socks and incense in the afternoons. Even when I rode back to Holmes very late at night, my personal safety was never threatened.

There are some things MARTA could do to make the system safer.

First, enforce fare gates more vigorously. Anyone who evades fare should at least be stopped for a while as an officer checks the evader’s ID. It’s a very good way of catching people who have warrants out for their arrest.

Second, make the police presence visible on the trains. Plain clothes officers may help catch sock sellers, but they’re a very ineffective way to maintain order on the system. Maintaining order will have the greatest impact on the perception of safety.

Third, discontinue M*PACT. This is the reason why it can be easier to see a MARTA police officer in a car than riding the system. I’ve heard about this program from several MARTA employees — all of whom acknowledge that M*PACT’s approach lacks common sense.

Overall, I feel much safer on MARTA than I do driving Atlanta’s suburbs. Having ridden the system’s trains and busses at all hours of the night and day, I am confident in the safety and security of the system. However, this is an area where MARTA could really stand to improve its image.

Drumroll please…. and the winner of the Worst ‘Best of Atlanta’ issue is? Gwinnett Magazine! … Please Wrap Up.

Seriously. Best of issues are great. They let editors and experts on a town give you insight in the the restaurants, schools, architecture, and local folks who deserve praise. However, lots of best of issues have turned gutless. They have multiple winners or they make sure that the popular vote an the critical vote recognize two different winners.

Gwinnett Magazine however, takes the cake. In their category for ‘Best Place for a Business Meeting or Retreat’, they list Evergreen Conference Center (in Stone Mountain Park) and Chateau Elan… Neither of which are actually IN Gwinnett! Not only did they fail in deciding on a winner, but they chose facilities that should be ineligible for their decision! At the top of the issue they ask “Have you really looked at Gwinnett lately?” Apparently not as they can’t even find the county boarders!

Right now, the best ‘Best of Atlanta‘ issue is the one published by ‘Creative Loafing’. The categories are pretty consistent and hit the essentials. They divide readers and critics, who do seem to make an effort to distinguish between ‘most popular’ and actual ‘best’.

Other publications try but are not as good. However, there is one category that seems to scare Atlantans. No one ranks schools in this town. No one puts all the elementary, secondary, and high schools together and declares one of each the best. Heck, they won’t even do it by department! What gives? If you’re willing to declare a given person the best politician, or a given restaurant the best food, why not give people something really useful? Best math department! If Businessweek can rank the top business schools in the world, surely the AJC can rank the best schools.

(Note: A year ago, Atlanta Magazine name this Bloglanta best Blog. We appreciate that very much.)

Once in a while, someone else puts it down stronger than we ever could.

As you may know, the Georgia General Assembly is considering a bill that would let local municipalities decide whether or not to allow bottle sales of wine and beer on Sunday.  Liquor stores and religious conservatives oppose it.  A majority of Georgians favor it.  In the AJC, the following letter to the editor appears framing the debate in an excellent light.  Excellent job, Mr. Zinsenheim.  Fantastic.
‘Pork Sales: Is a Similar Restriction Due?’

“After a hard workweek back at his old job as a veterinarian, Sonny was looking forward to his favorite Saturday morning breakfast of fried eggs, grits, biscuit with gravy, and smoked pork sausage. That was until Mary informed him that they were out of sausage. “No problem, I’ll just run down to the grocery store,” replied Sonny. However, when Sonny got to the meat section, he was greeted with a sign “By State Law: No Pork Sales on Fridays or Saturdays.” Sonny had forgotten about the law advocated by a coalition of Jews, Muslims and Seventh-day Adventists. Sonny called his local state representative, complaining “Why should the religious views of some infringe on the vast majority of Georgia residents?” The reply was:

“Think of it this way. It really helps you plan ahead for the rest of your life. Time management.”

STEVE ZINSENHEIM, Marietta