SaportaReport

Too many of my contemporaries are dying, years too young.

Debra Halpern Bernes, my high school classmate, passed away last week after fighting cancer for two years. The synagogue was full of family, friends and associates who marveled at how she had been able to keep an infectious upbeat attitude despite her pain.

For those of us who attended Grady High School 40 years ago, it was another one of those unpleasant reunions. After the service, a group of us gathered to outside the Ahavath Achim Synagogue for hugs and even a group photo. Another one of our classmates had left us.

One of the last times we had gathered was in May, 2007 when

By Maria Saporta

On Saturday, a majestic tree on the front lawn of the H.M. Patterson & Sons – Spring Hill Chapel funeral home was cut down — causing grief to those who usually are there to console.

“My heart is aching,” said John Gallatin, funeral director and location manager for H.M. Patterson. “It was one of the three original trees that had been planted in 1928.”

After his father died in 1923, Fred Patterson inherited the business and decided “to construct a funeral home on

The sci-fi masterpiece “2001: A Space Odyssey” was released way back in 1968, a year when it seemed as if the whole world was coming undone.

I was an 8-year-old science nerd at the time, and my big sister Gail took me to watch director Stanley Kubrick’s G-rated head-trip at the Rialto Theater on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn.

I didn’t understand most of the movie but couldn’t wait for the day when I could travel across galaxies talking to computers and scooting between the stars with my very own jet pack.

Better still; the movie imagined a distant future that was an escapist balm to the brutal realities of the times.

“Let the Awe and Mystery of a Journey Unlike Any Other Begin” was that movie’s wordy but inspiring tagline. Cool.

In 1984, the movie’s sequel “2010” was released with even trippier special effects, more ambitious interplanetary excursions and an army of chatty computers.

But the Utopian ambitions of the original had been downsized a bit: an alien intelligence convinced the Americans and the Russians that nuking each other into oblivion would be a bad thing. That’s nice, but I was expecting more than just a futuristic version of 80′s-style detente.

Well, the future is here. Unfortunately, although the technology on movie screens and in our lives is advancing apace, we’re not exactly keeping

By Guest Columnist ALLISON KELLY, senior vice president of the Georgia Conservancy.

For decades, Georgia’s environmental community has urged the state’s top elected officials to take water issues seriously.

In the 2009 state legislature, water yet again took a back seat to matters deemed more critical, such as the economy, education and immigration.

All that changed last summer, when federal judge Paul Magnuson ruled that metro Atlanta has no legal authority to draw drinking water from Lake Lanier. It was a shot across the bow that catapulted water from the sidelines to center stage among those now running to replace Sonny Perdue for governor.

By Maria Saporta
Contributing Writer

David M. Ratcliffe, chairman, president and CEO of the Southern Co., announced Tuesday he will retire Dec. 1, and his successor will be Thomas A. Fanning, currently the company’s chief operating officer.

On Aug. 1, Fanning, 53, will become president of Atlanta-based Southern Co. (NYSE: SO), and then he will become the company’s chairman and CEO on Dec.