As Central Atlanta Progress gradually releases details of the deal they’re trying to work out to get the NASCAR Hall of Fame to Atlanta, I’m struck by the website address. Somehow, this became the Hall Off A Meat ‘Lanta.
Noticably missing from the list is anyone connected to the AJC, even from Cox Enterprises. It seems to me they would love another opportunity to complain about something.
The Georgia Department of Transportation has apparently gone nuts. We could have commuter rail up and running by 2006, but not if the NIMBYs adversly influencing GDOT have their way.
It could serve Clayton county, which needs both transportation choices and an engine for economic development. The Federal Government will pay most of the capital costs and operating costs would be about $4 million per year plus the amounts collected from the fare box and GDOT is balking.
Words cannot describe how foolish this is. Now we have the chance to begin the work GDOT has been planning for some time! The board meets on July 20th to decide the future of commuter rail and now is the time to get involved. The board is ordered by congressional district. Contact your board member and urge that the Lovejoy rail plan get support and proceed.
Please also contact Governor Sonny Perdue! He supported using Clayton as the model and put the line in his transportation package! Now apparently he has said “he doesn’t intervene in DOT struggles”. He’s the chief executive. He needs to step to this and flex some muscle. To fail in this matter would be a failure of leadership. Delta & AirTran also need to get behind this effort. They are the largest employers in Clayton and can flex some muscle.
Lastly, if the city’s wealthy men can put up $200,000,000.00 for an big fish tank or a large housing development, surely some of the wealthy men and women can come together to put forth a challenge grant. Someone with the capital needs to step up with $2,000,0000 and pledge to match funds committed by Clayton and the cities in it for 3 years. After that time, we’ll have some idea of whether commuter rail has taken hold.
Waste this opportunity and it will be another sign that Metro Atlanta is not prepared to be a world class 21rst century, just another 20th century story of boomtown gone bust.
The issue now seems to be an annual ritual. Those who use the Braves shuttle complain about it, and something is done to make the whole situation worse.
Last year, citing low ridership, MARTA shifted the location of the Braves shuttle from Forsyth St., directly adjacent to the Five Points station, to the Coca-Cola plaza. The move meant that fans taking MARTA would have to walk across Underground Atlanta to ride the shuttle busses.
A similar move back in 2002 prompted an outpouring of letters to the AJC.
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God Bless the Britons.
The suffering of Londoners should not go unnoticed. They are where we have been, only the attack is worse and regrettably, they have greater experience. We express sorrow for the loss of friends and family around the world. We stand with all Londoners in this day. The attackers were fools and scum and will only have strengthened the resolve against them.
Remember that Atlanta also suffered terrorist attacks. Also in a time when the city was focused on the Olympics. Imagine if 5 points station were bombed at rush hour. It would be horrible. It would disrupt all Georgia life.
Oddly, one thing Atlanta has going for it is that terrorists are trying to attack ‘financial’ districts… and we really don’t have one. An odd blessing.
The terror level has been raised to orange and perhaps today we should take more note than usual. Today is also exactly the right day to makes reservations to go to London.
Holly and I went to check out the new IKEA this past Saturday. We figured — actually, I figured, and she knew better — the crowds would have died down enough for us to be able to actually see the merchandise by then. I was wrong, of course, but we did get to catch a glimpse of a few items here and there.
Long before this IKEA opened, neither I nor Holly could figure out what all the hype was about. There’s no good reason why cheap chic furniture should be so great that crowds in London and Saudi Arabia are willing to die for it on opening day. After all, you can buy a lot of this same stuff at the big box retailers we already have at the same price — with the added bonus that you can actually pronounce the names of the furniture you’re buying.
My favorite feature of the store was the “Living in xxx square feet” areas, where xxx was some number too low for most red-blooded Americans to think about. The point of these mock-ups was to allow you to imagine yourself living in a sub-500-square-foot apartment with more amenities than you’ll ever need. Somehow, I don’t think I’ll ever need shampoo and conditioner dispensers in my shower. The real effect of these mock-ups, with so many people crammed in there, was to imagine yourself at a party in someone else’s sub-500-square-foot apartment.
My least favorite feature of the store was the architecture. Ultimately, it’s still a big box retailer, and it was built in the same form and mold as your standard suburban sap of blight. Despite its location at the edge of Atlantic Station, the only reasonable way to get there is to drive. Then again, the most reasonable way to get to Atlantic Station is to drive. It’s really a shame because Atlantic Station could have been a true urban neighborhood where its residents don’t have to live in service to the car. IKEA could have been an example for other big box retailers to follow. Then, I would have been more willing to shell out some dough.
Atlanta is lucky. We have two sports talk stations.
Competition is good. 680 ‘The Fan’ was the first Atlanta Sports station and then the Dickey Broadcasting folks changed formats for a while. When they ceased to be sports oriented, Steak Shapiro and his Big League Broadcasting partners leased WQXI’s AM station and put up 790 The Zone. Then, in 2000, WCNN switched back to Sports Radio.
Now the competition is fierce. Perhaps even too fierce. (A recent spot on 680 labels 790 as not accessible enough for the white guys in the suburbs- real overtones of prejudice against hip hop culture)
Structurally, 680 has the edge. Their signal is stronger, they are the ESPN affiliate, and should they ever resume play, 680 will be the Thrashers home. The problem is that the programming is not all that good. Midday, it’s not even sports, but rather the rantings of Bill O’Reily. They shove Dan Patrick, who’s a real sports talent, on to 1340 AM. Their morning team? Christopher Rude and Jamie Dukes. Dukes is the real deal. He knows football and knows about the business of sports, but that’s where it ends. Christopher Rude? Good broadcaster, not an excellent sports guy. The rest of the line up is just sad and angry. They even admit their personalities know little about sports!
Compare this to 790. They do their homework. Dukes is good on football, but Chuck Oliver is better. No one researches the college game as he does. Numbers, homework, and thoughtful analysis go a long way… Which brings us to Dimino
Chris Dimino that is. There is no substitute. His interviews of OJ Simpson and Pete Rose are legendary. He’s very thoughtful and he cares about sports, what they mean, and how reality meshes with them. He’s intensely well prepared and expects his callers to be as well. He is sports talk for smart people. Why ESPN or NPR has not snapped him up is beyond me.
Oddly, at night, ESPN seems to be calmer and less vitriolic than Fox and so the dial goes back to ESPN’s All Night program. However, once you wake up and hit the car, 790 is the answer.
People still write poetry about Atlanta. In fact they’re doing it over at MetroBlog Atlanta. Big props to Will Hindmarch who wrote what is likely the first paradelle about Atlanta.
Paradelle for Atlanta
I imagine you soaking wet in a sundress with sweat.
I imagine you soaking wet in a sundress with sweat.
You hold a pitcher of sweet tea and drip with Spanish moss.
You hold a pitcher of sweet tea and drip with Spanish moss.
I imagine you drip sweet sweat in a pitcher with dry tea.
And hold you of soaking wet moss with a Spanish sundress.
Why don’t we drink lemonade with Confederate ghosts?
Why don’t we drink lemonade with Confederate ghosts?
Shouldn’t you be shaking cocktails and hopping bars?
Shouldn’t you be shaking cocktails and hopping bars?
Why shouldn’t we be Confederate cocktails with lemonade bars?
Don’t you drink hopping and shaking ghosts?
You’re feathery pines instead of picket-fence plantations.
You’re feathery pines instead of picket-fence plantations.
You’re more about the Spanish conqueror and Coca-Cola.
You’re more about the Spanish conqueror and Coca-Cola.
The feathery fence conqueror pines more instead of you’re Spanish.
You’re Coca-Cola about picket and plantations.
Don’t you imagine you’re shaking Coca-Cola with lemonade moss?
We wet conquerors drink about plantations instead of soaking in Confederate tea.
Why you’re a sundress and the sweat of cocktails.
You and I dry a feathery pitcher with a picket fence.
Sweet pines drip with ghosts.
Be hopping with Spanish and more Spanish bars.
A Paradelle, by the way is a word puzzle inside a poem. 4 stanzas 24 lines. In the first 3, the first & third line repeats. In the last two lines of the first 3 stanzes, all the words must be used to resolve the stanza. Then in the last stanza you must use each word to resolve the whole poem. It’s one of the most recent poetic forms.