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WABE’s HD Radio News Stream is off the air. There is nothing in their website about this problem and it’s been off for several weeks. This is a troubling development. Ultimately, in a battle between news coverage and classical music, the news is going to win, but having an HD channel specifically for it was a great compromise.

Perhaps new staff have determined that the news broadcast was not important to members, but they’re wrong and the decision will come back to haunt them. They may also be fighting other fires.

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting published a study which showed that WABE is among the least diverse stations in the country. With a listening audience that is very diverse, having only one daily host who is not white and no regular news and information programming focusing on the city itself is perhaps of more immediate attention.

Still, as the comments to various posts here have shown, people want the news and cutting off the HD stream is not going to help. WABE should return it to air as soon as possible.

The buzz of Atlanta Radio is whether or not the prosecution and reporting of the Michael Vick has been adversely effected by race.  The NAACP has certainly been involved in trying to defend Vick.

People have been arguing that athletes such as Dany Heatley received far less harsh sentences than Vick because Heatley was White.  However, the analogy here is not Heatley, but Rae Carruth, who murdered the mother of his child.  Of all organizations, the NAACP should know that this is a Martin Luther King Jr. moment.  Judge Michael Vick not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. 

Michael Vick is pleading guilty to a crime in which he willfully inflicted cruel treatment on animals who could not defend themselves and enjoyed that cruelty.  That’s his character; pathological and dangerous.  That’s a person who should not be running around in anyone’s community.

What Heatley did was stupid and tragic, but it was not willfully cruel.  A person who chooses willfully cruel way of killing the defenseless for the purposes of enjoying that pain deserves prison.

That’s the crime here.  Calling it a racially motivated witch hunt just compounds it.

It looked as though a constructive re-formulation of Grady might be in the works with a new governance system, a new board, and new money.  Meetings were happening and even the Speaker of the House was in attendance.  But those already in power at Grady saw their livelihoods in danger and so they pulled the race switch.  This, of course, has thrown the train off the track.  Whether it derails is yet to be seen.

Part of the Grady issue is about race.  The people who use Grady is disproportionately minorities.  People without health insurance in Georgia are also disproportionately minorities.  Grady also has a stigma of race left over from past decades when people referred to the hospital as “The Grady’s”.   Morehouse, one of the few African American medical schools has said that if Grady Closes, they too may have to shut their doors.

Still, race here, while legitimate, is only an issue.  It’s not The Issue.  The issue is that letting Grady close is flat stupid and no one seems to have the courage to step up and say “Grady will not close, it’s too important an asset, we’ll all accept changes to make it happen”.  If there were a real disaster and Grady was closed, we’d have lost the best level one trauma center south of DC to handle the emergency.  People with real traumas would also lose their access to good care.  Without Grady, more people will die.

Yes, there are racial concerns if Morehouse close, but the real issue of Morehouse closing is that we need Doctors.  Georgia needs all they can get and keeping Medical schools open is important.  Again, if Grady closes and Morehouse closes, there will be fewer Doctors and more people will die.

The Chamber of Commerce recommendations (with which everyone has a complaint, so you know they did something right), suggest keeping the operating authority in place and it’s board in place to address governmental oversight, long term strategic issues, and a link to the communities which Grady primarily serves.  Under that board, would the be board of the Non Profit Corporation which was responsible for running the hospital and health system day to day and doing the general strategic and tactical management necessary to keep the enterprise financially stable.

Who should be on the two boards?  On the Authority board, there should be elected representatives from the City of Atlanta, Dekalb County, and Fulton County.  They should make a bare majority.  Then, representatives from the State, Atlanta Regional Commission, and community groups should also be represented.  Lastly, members of the Corporation Board should have voting power on the new Authority board.  This way, the tax payers who have carried the bulk of the load for Grady will still make a majority of the board and they, via election, would have to be responsive to the people most likely to use the hospital.

The Corporation board will need to be made up of dedicated professionals.  Members of Emory University, Morehouse, business leaders, and experts in financial stabilization such as Lisa Cremin must be on this board.  A balance of financial experts and medical professionals is needed to keep Grady Running.

Further, the goal of both board must be the same:  To financially stabilize and increase the quality of care for all those using the system, regardless of ability to pay.

Grady, perhaps more than any other institution in Georgia calls for a Deming style approach to improve the excellence in the care it provides.  To accomplish this, the focus has to be on the customers.  To make the customers happy, efforts will be needed to make effective use of staff time, to give them incentives to improve things, and guarantees that the system will still be in place.

So far, one politician seems to get this, and he is Lt. Governor Casey Cagle.  Much to the surprise of everyone, he has been out front and recognizing Grady’s importance, keeping it open to those it currently serves, and suing state resources to help fund the transition to a more stable structure that wastes less money.  Working with Senator David Shaeffer, there will be enabling legislation for the changes envisioned by the Chamber Report in the coming session of the Legislature.

As for those who still harp about the loss of ‘Black Power’, this is worth pointing out.  Power, in and of itself, is pointless.  Unchecked, it merely leads to inefficiency… witness the current system at Grady.  The key is not power, but actually doing something to help the people who the hospital serves:  those in great medical need and those without insurance.  A majority of the people using Grady are minorities and so if the system is fixed, the majority who will actually benefit, will also be minorities.

On the outside, the color that matters here is green.  On the inside, the color that matters is red.  If all you can see is Black or White, you’ll never capture enough green to stop the red from hemorrhaging.

The opening of the new Hudson Grille at Brookhaven Station provides an opportunity to reflect on tavern culture here in Atlanta. We have an advantage over many cities in that we have mid price range up scale taverns that are based here. Just as Charlotte has a great diner culture, we have a great tavern culture. Most cities have great dive taverns and really high end bars, but few have great quality in the middle. Hudson Grille joins a great group that includes The 5 Seasons Brewery, Village Bakery and Restaurant, P’cheen, Atkins Park and others. All of these places serve quality beer and food that is a step above the dreaded Sysco and Monarch Bars.

The Hudson Grille takes the place of Jocks and Jills and GM Tony Shaw wants to recapture the J&J crowd “Plus”. That plus is a little bit better atmosphere and a real focus on the food. Like Garrison’s (the best value in steak in Atlanta, especially the Vinings location), the menu has some serious dishes on it. It also has bar food. To make his restaurant distinctive, Shaw knows that not only must serious dishes have to meet muster, but the basic bar food has to be better than expected. The burgers have to be worth it and wings have to be as good as Atkin’s Park.

Shaw is also taking another pretty big risk. He’s broadening the menu to add pizza. A broader menu will let him expand the crowd that comes in, however, serving pizza when you’re 50 feet from Mellow Mushroom is risky. Still, if he wants to capture both the Brookhaven parental crowd and the Oglethorpe University students, pizza is a risk that can pay. The trick will be to keep an eye on the quality. If some parts of the menu are not consistently prepared well, the reputation of the restaurant could suffer. With a diverse menu, that’s harder to do.

In doing a broader menu, he’s going the opposite way from institutions such as 5 Seasons and the Village Bakery and Restaurant. Both of those watering holes have made their mark by limiting their menu to a particular zeitgeist of food. The Village does delicious authentic German food. The 5 Seasons Brewery has done it by embracing a slow food philosophy and using only organic ingredients (and it’s Kobe beef you can afford!). They’ve also created an atmosphere that’s very community oriented. As a result both restaurants are beloved.

Shaw’s path to stalwartship in the community is riskier, however he also has the power of the Metrotainment group behind him. That gives him some marketing muscle, management help, access to first class desserts, and branding. It helps to be able to say “We’re the sports entertainment version of Cowtippers or Garrisons”; the message being “hey we’re just like these other places you love, but you can keep an eye on the game too!”

Visiting the Hudson Grille on opening night was a good experience and worth repeating. The interior is a bit upscale from Jocks and Jills but higher energy than Garrison’s. The service was on point and the food was good. The desserts were delicious. Key lime pie with a raspberry drizzle is always a good idea. The biggest complaint is that it’s a tad noisy, but they’ll learn to zone things. The check was $26 including one main course (shrimp), two desserts, and drinks.

Tests for the Hudson Grille and Shaw’s team will come pretty quickly. The community test will first come this weekend when the surrounding professional community comes to relax. He’ll be ready for them. Then two weeks from now, ‘the excellence in a broad situation’ test will continue when Oglethorpe students return.

Hopefully this place will succeed for a number of reasons. First, with Jocks and Jills on the defensive, Atlanta can use a good upscale sports bar. Second, Hudson Grille stays open late (until 2 AM) and is walking distance from a MARTA station so you can zip over after the game or concert is done). In an era where places have cut back their hours, it’s good to have a transit accessible watering hole where you can stay until the last train!

What were they thinking? WABE, which had some momentum has just lost some with the release of their new schedule. Yes adding “The World” was a great thing, but lessening the number of days that ‘Fresh Air’ was carried is not the way. Moving ‘The Infinite Mind” and “Speaking of Faith” to 7 AM on the weekends when the number of people who are awake to hear it is significantly lessened is not the way.

Further, ‘My Word‘ is gone. Bundling it with ‘Says You‘ or ‘My Music’ would have made a lot more sense. It could have been coupled with ‘Studio 360′ and replaced the repeat of a ‘Prarie Home Companion’.

The Best Solution would simply have been to run Fresh Air at 2 P.M. and leave everything else in place. That would have meant losing an hour of music and that well may be the cause of the reluctance. However, the public seems to want the news programming. Moreover, there does not seem to be a well organized program to the classical music played in the afternoons. One solution to this would be to have an hour set aside each day to recordings of Atlanta Classical Music. Another would be to have an hour dedicated each day to serious music of the past 20 years.

In the mean time the new line up will make one element of the station more popular… the HD news Channel.

That Grady Hospital is in trouble is nothing new, but after talking to physicians that work there, there is new information to add to the mix.

Just in case, you’re unaware, Grady Hospital is in big trouble.  It is again on the verge of closing.  One physician who asked to not be identified said she expects Grady to close before October.  It will simply run out of money and Emory will be financially forced to stop providing free services.

There are several causes here.  One is clearly mismanagement, but that’s not the whole ball of wax.  The Board is at fault, but so are Fulton and Dekalb County who have bickered over funding the hospital and providing alternate clinics for non emergency health care for the uninsured.  Uninsured and Indigent patients make up 60% of the workload of Grady.  Also, as discussed previously, the suburbs leach off of Grady for the most severe cases and don’t provide any funding on their own. Some working at Grady even allege that indigent patients from Cobb, Gwinnett, Henry, and Clayton Counties are brought to Grady and dumped so that hospitals in those communities don’t have to take the hit.  Lastly, as with MARTA, the state has provided nothing but regulation.  They have provided no funding.

Letting Grady close would be a tragedy of untold proportions.  Grady is the best level one trauma center in the country.  If you suffer severe trauma, you want to go to Grady.  Not only is it the best, it’s the only Level One Trauma Center for 100 miles in any direction.  No other hospital in Metro Atlanta can match it’s emergency resources.  If Grady closes, we’re a lot less prepared for a terrorist attack or major disaster.  Keeping Grady open is a matter of Homeland Security.

Doctors working a Grady are disheartened.  Many departments are working on Doctors who are not getting paid.  They are working pro-bono.  As well intentioned as they are, if the choice is going to put in hours a Grady or going to see their kid’s soccer game, Grady is going to lose some hours.  Moreover, Doctors complain of staff shortages, security concerns, and the notion that once an emergency is over, the goal is no longer to give good care, but passable care.  “It’s not what I signed up for” opined one Doctor, “But I have to do something.”   Is that they attitude we want from Doctors?

Asked about solutions, Doctors want a new board and new governing structure.  While there is some skepticism, the opinion seems to be that the Grady Task Force Plan is better than other alternatives out there.  They also want action from the Governor.  The Governor apparently appoints a substantial portion of the Grady Board but has not held those members accountable.  Doctors would like to see a sign that the Governor is aware of the problem and is ready to do something about it.

The irony is that Governor Perdue is perfectly situated to help right now.  He has a surplus of tax revenues which are unassigned.  Right now he can create a Grady Hospital Rainy Day Fund and pledge to help the hospital recover from its current financial crisis in return for reforms that will improve the quality of care and let the hospital reform its structure.  He doesn’t even necessarily have to spend the money.  Simply guaranteeing the Hospitals Debt would go a long way toward helping it come out of the woods.  Even if the bonds came due, he could invest the money and likely not even use half of it.  The problem is that he is unwilling to offer money even if changes are made!  This will not help his political legacy or future.

Allegedly, Perdue has Vice Presidential aspirations.  If he lets the best trauma center close, he won’t be chosen.  If, instead, he shows some leadership and creates a successful program that ensures that Grady Hospital thrives long term, that will get him some notice… and he’d actually do something as Governor!  How about that!