Oh to have Gertrude Stein back, if only for a day. It was she who said once of Oakland, “There’s no there, there.” What wonders of grammatical compression might she have concocted in an age when the very concept of thereness is under stress?
The Southern Baptist Convention is considering dropping the “Southern.” The St. Petersburg Times has retired one of the most honored mastheads in newspaperdom to become The Tampa Bay Times. Texas A&M and Missouri will kick off next fall in the Southeastern Conference, and Kansas (where I spent a pleasant spell last fall as a fellow at the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics) may join the Big East.
These signs of cultural dislocation ought to be of special interest in Atlanta, a city
