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Some of my blogging friends have been doing quotes of the day lately. I spotted this jewel in today’s AJC:

Milton, a community of horse farms, golf courses and mansions, decided to become its own city last year in order to limit growth and its effects.

Dear Milton,

If you wanted to limit growth, why would you become a city? You’ve just created a new layer of bureaucracy that you have to support on your own. And the city council is going to deal with budgeting issues every year. To solve those issues, they need tax revenue. To get tax revenue, they will from now to forever have to worry about the community’s economic development.

Your real misfortune was not that you are located in the northern sticks of Fulton County. Oh no. Your misfortune comes from the 1983 Georgia Constitution. From the New Georgia Encyclopedia:

Counties are allowed to provide:

—police and fire protection

—garbage and solid waste collection and disposal

—public health facilities and services, including hospitals, ambulances, emergency rescue, and animal control

—street and road construction, including curbs, sidewalks, and street lights

—parks, recreational areas, facilities, and programs

—storm-water and sewage collection and disposal systems

—water utilities

—public housing

—public transportation

—libraries, archives, and arts/sciences programs and facilities

—terminal and dock facilities and parking facilities

—codes, including building, housing, plumbing, and electrical codes

—air quality control

—planning and zoning

These supplementary powers address citizens’ demands to improve and maintain the state’s quality of life. Cities and towns have long offered these services, but they were seldom seen outside the urban environment.

What does it all mean? It means every county can effectively be a city. It means every city will forever be dysfunctional because their ability to grow, and their ability to provide effective and efficient services will be hampered because county governments are already providing municipal services.The change in the Georgia Constitution was made because — like the god damn babies they always have been and always will be — Georgia’s rural and suburban citizens wanted to have their cake and eat it, too. “Waa! I want my bucolic setting, and I want my municipal services, too! And keep my taxes low, while you’re at it!”

Now, Milton, you are among those suffering the consequences. Tough luck.

Fellow metro Atlanta citizens, you reap what you sow. You associated the City of Atlanta with crime, corruption, and a generally unbucolic setting. Rather than doing something about it, you decided it better to vote with your feet and run away from the problems. That’s not how problems go away. It should be no suprise that they follow you when you vote with your feet.

The few among you who voted in 1983 had the chance to keep counties as counties and cities as cities. You were sold a tax-hungry sham. You could have kept Atlanta within its city limits. And you could have had a chance to have some power of your own in seeing Atlanta’s problems fixed — complete with a more powerful way to vote: by kicking out dirty politicians.

Let the City of Atlanta expand its borders, and its balance of power will shift faster than you can say “gentrification.” Stop forming new cities and counties — you will solve nothing. You will cause more problems for yourselves. You will try to not grow, which will force your fellow crybabies to move further out and settle more of the countryside. And they will clog your roads. And you will have no money to widen your roads that you worked so hard to avoid having to widen.

Today, you take your municipal services for granted, and you pretend that you pay more in taxes than you get back. Your utilities and infrastructure, which were built to allow you to live out in the middle of boringland, are expensive. No matter to what extent federal and state governments subsidize your infrastructure, you ultimately pay for these things with your taxes. People of Pretend-Milton County: You reap what you sow.

Congratulations on creating your own problems.

There are various signs that you are becoming a bigger better city.  One of them is how many newspapers are readily available for purchase, and for the first time, Atlanta has crossed into the zone.  Of course there is the local rag, and it’s easy to get the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, and the Christian Science Monitor.

Now however, there is alternative.  If you want to crawl through the newspaper equivalent of Bill O’Reilly’s Brain… if you want to read the Weekly World News‘ leap toward semi-legitimate news coverage… if you want to discover the true meaning of tabloid journalism, you should go the Kroger at Brookwood Station…

There you can buy the daily national edition of The New York Post.  Now, it’s a buck seventy-five, and it’s not as big as the New York edition (which is only a quarter), but still…  How can you match headlines such as “Burger Flippers are K-Fed Up!” (about the Former Mr. Britney Spears Superbowl commercial)?  Or “Foe unfurls Trump Move” (about a lawsuit against Donald Trump)?   This right wing populist rag now has a place on Atlanta newsstands… for better or worse.

Right now, the Atlanta History Center is the opposite of the High Museum.  Both the History Center and High brought a big name exhibit, but where as the High’s other collections were more interesting than the Louvre exhibit, the History Center’s exhibit of the King Papers is worth your time.

Now, I know what you’re thinking… “More Doctor King?  Come on, we get enough of it every year.  I have a dream in which we’re not beaten over the head with this stuff!”   This is different and better.  First, this exhibit does not hit you over the head.   Most selections are from his papers and library.  There is some A/V stuff, but it’s ancillary to the mainstay of the exhibit.  It’s really about seeing the evolution of his ideas through the process of writing his speeches.

The researchers have been meticulous.  They’ve found the books with notes scribbled in the margins which directly relate to the speeches that set our culture forward.  Dr. King was truly a scholar in addition to being a first rate rhetorician.  He drew knowledge and lessons from Descartes and Galbraith as well as the bible and Gandhi.  Those lessons went into crafting his ideas and there are several speeches in which you can read the first and second drafts before you listen to the final versions.

There are also a few telegrams of note.  How they are crafted reminds us that 40 years ago, we truly communicated differently.  Letters were more formal.  People created eloquent sentences to manifest elegant ideas.  Our current age sees stretching the language as superfluous.

However, what we lack in language, we more than make up for in visual symbolism, and the center, again like the High, addresses that through quilts.  Again, the History Center exhibit is better.  The quilt exhibit features both excellent abstract expressionist pieces and more literal works.  It shows how advances in sewing have lead to more precise designs and given artists more room to grow.  It also shows how more multimedia elements have been incorporated into the design.  The quilt entirely made from neckties was especially neat.

Allow enough time.  The King exhibit alone will take an hour to ninety minutes.  Add a tour of Swan House or Tullie Farm and the other exhibits, and you should really give yourself the afternoon; three hours minimum.

Visiting the Atlanta History Center serves as a reminder that although most are newcomers and many have tried to tear down the past, Atlanta has a history!   Understanding that history is important to seeing the underlying currents which still flow throughout decision making today.  The change is inevitable.  Understanding where the currents of change started lets us better direct its flow.

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

Overheard on WABE… Instructions on what to do if your car skids! Hilarious! They  actually felt it necessary to tell tell people to take their foot of the accelerator and NOT put on the brake! Hello? Anyone else take Driver’s Ed?

Oh… wait, we’re in Atlanta! This is the city where too many people think that passing on the right is just fine and that  turn signals are completely optional.

Atlanta is also the city where the number of the road seems to be the speed limit too. Briarcliff? That’s route 33. I-85?  Pretty obvious. People on the city’s one toll way really do seem at least to want to travel 400 miles an hour.

Okay, so with the possible winter weather coming, be smart. Warn your boss that you might be a little late tomorrow and take it slow. Slow, relaxed, and easy. That’s the key.

An amazing thing happened on Thursday.  The Inman Park MARTA station’s northern parking lot was full.  Absolutely full.  Before this year, this was a rarity at best.  This shows some progress and some problems.  First, it shows that MARTA ridership is on the rise and that demand for frequent service will cause people to drive a little further.

That demonstrates that MARTA should seriously consider extending trains on the Proctor Creek Line to the Decatur Station.  That would both help move people to one of Atlanta’s top restaurant destinations and let more people use the Eastlake Station while still capturing the benefits of two trains.

It also shows that demand is still high for parking.  Some of that comes from the closure of the Parking Lot for the King Memorial Station.   There used to be parking there, but it has now been leased to Grady Hospital for their employees and the public can no longer use it, but mostly it comes from the general publics discomfort with buses.  That discomfort is three fold.  First, because MARTA does not get enough financing, it has had to consistently pull back on its schedule.  The frequent changes in schedule have also made people leery of the buses.  Lastly there are social economic issues that still remain.

Still, it’s good to see the system prosper and to witness people using it in smart ways.

On a recent trip to Dallas, it seemed worth making a trek to one of the two remaining Eatzi’s in the country. Eatzi’s make a big splash when it opened and a big one when it closed. Employees arrived to work to find only a sign on the door saying that the company was closing here. Not only did they close here, but they closed all across the nation. The original owner bought back every store and closed them all, except two. The original and one in Chicago.

You may remember that when Eatzi’s arrived in the late nineties, Atlanta was abuzz! Gourmet quick take out! Then competitors began to arrive: Fresh Market, Market One, but especially Whole Foods. According to staffers in Dallas, the Buckhead store was among the most profitable outlets in the entire chain and then Whole Foods built the Buckhead market. In two years, revenues fell at the Buckhead Eatzi’s more than thirty five percent. In the grocery business, two percent is a big margin; thirty Five percent is an earthquake. This pattern was repeated around the country forcing the corporate owners of Eatzi’s to consider changes that the original owner didn’t like. So he bought it back and closed all locations except Dallas and Chicago. Now Eatzi’s will build out the Dallas market where home town loyalty insulates them from some of the burdens of the competition.

One interesting note is that staffers at Eatzi’s say the arrival of Trader Joe’s had little or no effect on their decisions. “Trader Joe’s has a different niche” said one staffer. Apparently, one of the keys to success of Trader Joe’s is paying as little rent as possible. They carefully find a posh area with a dead shopping space and go there.

In the meantime, Whole Foods booms in Atlanta and the southeast. They’re even developing a new space as they add more and more metro markets.

Will Fresh Market survive? Be There and Find Out!

While he was in office, President Ford visited Atlanta. He spoke to a Republican gathering 20 years ago.

When Ford came here, one of this State’s sons was on his way to receiving the National blessing to run against him. Democrats held the Georgia House and Senate and Maynard Jackson was mayor.

President Ford pointed out somethings that today’s Republicans ought to remember as they again clothe themselves in the gowns of power under the Gold Dome and as Democrats take the helm in Washington.

Now, on his national day of mourning, we reprint his remarks:
———-
President Ford:
John, Matt, and all of you wonderful Republicans here in this meeting in the Atlanta area:

Let me first express my deep appreciation and gratitude for John Savage’s endorsement. I know it will be very meaningful, and I promise to you, John, as I promise to everybody here, I won’t let you down.

Now, let me thank all of you. This is the biggest Georgia Republican gathering I have seen in the many, many times I have been in Georgia on behalf of the Republican Party, so I think it augers well that come May 4 we may surprise some of those people who think they are going to win. I think we have a darn good chance of winning.

I want to thank some of the people that I know personally, that I served with in the Congress, for the help and assistance and their support. First, I want to thank Fletcher Thompson, who I understand has gone the length and the breadth of Georgia speaking out on my behalf. And if Fletcher is here, I want you to know, Fletch, thank you very, very much.

I want to thank another great Georgian for the help and assistance, the invaluable aid that he gave me during some tough times in this campaign, a very dear friend of mine, a very outstanding American, Bo Callaway. I think it is very unfair the kind of treatment he is getting from a committee in the United States Senate. And, doggone it, they ought to do better in the handling of a matter of this kind to give Bo a fair shake.

Now, let me, if I might, give you some ideas and suggestions that might be helpful in the 11 days between now and May 4. I know many of you will be at the telephone phone banks, many of you will be talking to your friends, many of of you will be discussing who ought to be the Republican nominee in the fall of 1976.

Let me respectfully give you some suggestions that I know have been helpful in the areas of this country where we have been successful and in those areas of the country where we are going to be more successful.

First, when I became President in August of 1974 we were experiencing some very serious economic problems. The rate of inflation was 12 to 14 percent. We were on the brink–literally on the brink–of the worst economic recession in this country in 40 years.

Well, my firm, constructive, I think, steady policies that put the emphasis on trying to get the private sector to meet the challenge rather than loading up the Federal payroll, we have come out of this in good shape.

Where do we stand? Where do we stand? Well, instead of 12 to 14 percent inflation, the rate of inflation for the first 4 months of 1976 was 2.9 percent. That is great success, and we are going to keep working on it, and we will do even better.

Last May, the unemployment was at almost 9 percent, but since last May, at the depth of the recession, we have added 2,600,000 more people gainfully employed in this country. As of March, it was reported that we had 86,700,000 people gainfully employed in this country, the greatest number in the history of the United States. So, we have met the challenge in the area of employment, and we are going to do better and better, and we are going to continue to lower the unemployment rate as we will with the kind of policies that we have.

We’re on the road to the most sustained, best economic times that this country has had. And I think this administration can claim a great deal of credit for it.

And what do we want to achieve as we move ahead? We want to achieve a balanced budget. But you know how we’re going to get it? We’re going to cut the rate of growth of Federal spending from 11 percent to 5 1/2 or 5 percent. And, at the same time, in order to stimulate the private sector of the economy I hope the Congress will approve the additional $10 billion tax reduction that I recommended this year. And I hope and trust that they will follow on with the kind of a tax program that I will recommend the next year. And all of those programs of holding the rate of growth of Federal spending and stimulating the private sector will give us a balanced budget in 3 years and the healthiest, vigorous economy.

And you know, another thing that I think we can talk about–and I think it is dear to the hearts of the people here in Georgia–I firmly believe that we ought to get the Federal Government, to the extent that we possibly can, off the backs and out of the pockets of the people of this country. This administration believes in one very basic truth, and let me state it: A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.

Now, let me add another feature of what I think is a good selling point in Georgia, a good selling point in all 50 States. We want an even balance in labor management so that without government interference we can have those labor management problems solved with labor and management doing it without government interference. That is why I vetoed the common situs picketing bill. And I might also say, talking about vetoes, since I have been President I have vetoed 48 measures. That is an all-time record. Thirty-nine of those vetoes have been sustained even by this Congress. [Laughter] The net result is we have saved $13 billion in Federal expenditures, and that is not a bad record. But let me add a postscript. If they send down any more of this terrible legislation, we will veto it and veto it and veto it again.

Now, let’s talk for a minute about how we stand in our efforts to make sure that we maintain the peace. You know, I am very proud that I am the first incumbent President who is seeking election who can stand before the American people and say that our country is at peace–the first one in 20 years. So, we must be doing something right in our relations with our allies and with our adversaries.

All I am saying is the United States of America is number one. We have unsurpassed military capability, we are the greatest industrial nation in the history of the world, our agriculture outproduces anybody, we are ahead scientifically and technologically, and, most importantly, this country has a deep moral and spiritual and religious belief that gives us the inspiration to challenge anybody and to keep ahead of everybody, and that is where America is.

And now let me thank Matt, John, and all of you. We have got great leadership here in Georgia and we have got great people like you to help in the job. I think we have good programs, both domestically and internationally, and if we are able to do, as I think we have done in the last 20 months, in the next 4 years, we can say at the end of the next 4 years even stronger and even better than we say it today–every one of us is proud to be an American and proud of America.
Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 5:38 p.m. in the Olympium II and III Rooms at the Radisson Inn. In his opening remarks, he referred to John Savage, former Georgia Congressman, and Matthew Patton, chairman of the Georgia President Ford Committee.

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Citation: John Woolley and Gerhard Peters,The American Presidency Project [online]. Santa Barbara, CA: University of California (hosted), Gerhard Peters (database).

Recently in a discussion about local radio stations, noted local actor Ryan Girard mentioned that 97.1 ‘The River‘ was “all Eagles, all the time”.

While not literally true, you know what he meant.  So the question is: “How often does WFOX play the Eagles?”.  Here’s what a recent sample found…

At random times of day over the course of a week, the station was hit 20 times.  And the results?

• 3 times commercials
• 6 times an Eagles song was playing
• 4 times Fleetwood Mac
• 7 times something else

So… more than a third of the time when not playing commercials, Don Henley is thrust upon you.  What makes this happen?  Here’s a theory…

70s FM radio and album sales were largely dominated by 3 groups:  The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and Steely Dan.  Each took a specific genre of music and reconceived it for the pop rock audience.  Steely Dan took jazz, Fleetwood Mac remade the blues, and the Eagles (and their even more insidious alter egos… Poco) were instrumental in creating California Country Rock.  The River is trying to appeal to primarily white boomer aged classic rock fans whose taste for anything that could be confused with R&B or Rap is minimal at best.  As a result the more corporate rock and country infused you can make it, the more it sends the message that this is music for Cul-De Sac oriented white suburban folks.  Not a lot of MC5 on that station.  Not even as much of the Dan as folks might like.  Too Risky.