By Maria Saporta
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed reasserted his commitment to making the city as green as it can be during the monthly Sustainable Atlanta Roundtable meeting Friday morning.
Reed said his goal for Atlanta is consistent — he wants it to be in the Top 10 sustainable cities in the United States. In the last national ranking, Atlanta was No. 18.
By Maria Saporta
Most institutions try to stay away from two of the most emotionally charged issues in today’s society — sexuality and religion.
But the Morehouse School of Medicine’s Satcher Health Leadership Institute and its Center of Excellence for Sexual Health is embracing both topics with the hopes that open and respectful dialogue of both topics will lead to better public health in underserved communities.
“Bernie” is absolutely the best show in town.
As my pal Spring A. said, I envy you the opportunity to see it for the first time,
Try to ignore the just-lays-there title. And please —on pain of ruining your own movie-going experience — do not read any review that tells you the entire plot.
By Maria Saporta
Women will play a pivotal role in whether the regional transportation sales tax passes on July 31.
That was the message that David Hill, director of Hill Research Consultants which is doing polling for the pro-tax entities, told more than 130 women who gathered at Home Depot’s headquarters for a lunch meeting on Wednesday afternoon.
By Maria Saporta
Friday, May 25, 2012
Atlanta Life Financial Group, a 107-year-old African-American-owned company, is going back to its roots.
I dutifully took myself to “Men in Black 3” and report on it almost as dutifully.
I was a huge fan of the first movie. There was, I remember, a special screening on a Sunday morning to accommodate some New York Times type and I dragged myself to it because, back then, I had to see everything.
Thankfully, that’s no longer true.
Facebook might have a new relationship status with its investors Did you see The Social Network? Watching it made viewers root for the Winklevosses and cheer for Eduardo Saverin. Mark Zuckerberg came off as a socially inept jerk, greedy and just a little bit pathetic. I bet you a billion dollars of Zuckerberg’s fortune he […]
By Maria Saporta
Barbara Mosacchio, president and CEO of the Atlanta Women’s Foundation since 2008, is returning to her hometown of Chicago.
Saying she was leaving with “mixed emotions,” Mosacchio has accepted a position to become president and CEO of Chicago Youth Centers — a 50-year-old social services organization serving children — beginning in early July.
In last week’s entry, Paula Vaughan mentioned Atlanta’s Lifecycle Building Center. For those who would like to learn more about the LBC, this week’s entry will give more information. From the LBC Case Statement: “A Lifecycle Building Center is a community-based warehouse facility that directly assists the general public by identifying and implementing best practice […]
Passing the referendum for the transportation sales tax will require a majority vote from an Atlanta region that elects congressmen whose political positions on transportation funding are starkly divided.
Suffice to say that this group of five Republicans and three Democrats does not often vote together. Earlier this year, they joined many of their colleagues in Congress in spliting along party lines over the reauthorization of the nation’s transportation funding program – leaving the nation with no transportation spending plan after the current one expires June 30.
But their constituents will have to come together if the transportation sales tax proposal is to prevail.
Compared to more competitive years, the scene at the Capitol on the final day of qualifying to run for state offices last Friday was pretty listless. With a new map drawn by the Republican majority, the number of truly competitive seats continues to dwindle, and the prospects for a tea party uprising in this summer’s Republican primaries fizzled as the qualifying period inched toward the noon deadline.
But this process, which separates with a check those who are serious from those who’re just talking about it, always generates a little drama, and there was some in both parties on Friday.
When there’s a pothole on a city street, work crews usually are out within days fixing the hole so that cars won’t get damaged while driving on the roadway.
But if a sidewalk is broken and presents a hazard to pedestrians, it takes years if not decades to fix.
Why? Because of poor public policy.
For the past nine years, at the end of May, one man’s yard in northeast Atlanta quietly turns into a replica of a World War II cemetery in France. He covers his immaculately trimmed zoysia lawn on Ridgewood Drive with carefully-place white crosses in honor of D-Day.
David T. Maddlone, who works at nearby Emory University, always sets up in time for Memorial Day. He wants people not to forget 10,000 men who died on June 6, 1944. When asked to give everything to a cause much bigger than themselves, they answered yes.
Their answer poses this question today: What does it take for someone to be a hero like that — to risk one’s life for a greater good?
By Maria Saporta and Amy Wenk
Friday, May 25, 2012
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed is determined to restore the Cyclorama into a significant attraction for the city.
But he has yet to decide on the best location for the Cyclorama, a historical three-dimensional depiction of one of the most important confrontations of the Civil War — the Battle of Atlanta.
By Guest Columnist TAD LEITHEAD, chairman of the Atlanta Regional Commission
Some 70 years ago, President Franklin Roosevelt gave what was later termed the “Map Speech” – one of his many “fireside chats” with Americans throughout World War II.
In anticipation of this particular radio address, he asked Americans to buy world maps. The response was overwhelming. Millions of citizens listened to the President’s address on February 23rd, 1942, where he detailed the progress of the wars, both in Europe and the Pacific, while folks at home used their maps to follow along.
The Marietta National Cemetery is an excellent spot for a quiet reflection on this day of remembrance for those who died while in service to the nation.
A ceremony that begins around noon on every Memorial Day strikes a tender balance of past losses and future hopes. A handful of dignitaries speak, though the loudspeakers barely cast their words across the hushed crowd gathered atop a summit.
Georgia now has two national cemeteries. One is in Marietta, which was built originally for Civil War casualties and is now closed to new interments. The other is in Canton, which opened in 2006 on 775 acres donated by the late Scott Hudgens, a World War II veteran who became a leading developer in metro Atlanta.
The state authority overseeing the conversion of Fort McPherson to civilian use made plans Thursday to ask the Army to turn over most of the fort at one time, rather than turn it over in a series of smaller transfers.
Such a move would give the authority more control over the pacing of the redevelopment of most of the 488-acre fort. The property has been a military island in southwest Atlanta since Fort McPherson opened in 1885, and it will revert to civilian use following its closure last year as part of the nation’s overhaul of military bases.
The plan to seek control of most of the fort is likely to come up in conversations next week with a team of Army consultants. The group is slated to visit Atlanta to discuss the framework for the property transfer, said Jack Sprott, executive director of the state authority that’s overseeing the fort’s conversion.
In a comprehensive review of parks among the 40th largest cities in the United States, the City of Atlanta ranked 26th.
The inaugural “ParkScore” rating system by the Trust for Public Land released Wednesday morning gave each city a score on a 100-point scale. Atlanta’s score was 42.5. Out of a rating of zero to five “park benches,” Atlanta earned two “park benches.”
By Maria Saporta
It could be worse.
The League of American Bicyclists has just released its ranking of “Bicycle Friendly States” — and the good news is that Georgia is in the top half with a ranking of 23 out of 50 states.
That is a significant improvement over 2011 when it was ranked 40th among the 50 states.
By Maria Saporta
Atlanta seized an opportunity Monday to show national and international visitors how the city and its institutions can help improve global health.
The all-day conference at the Ritz Carlton-Buckhead was called: Atlanta Summit: Sustaining American Leadership in Global Health & Water. It was organized by CARE USA, the Center for Strategic & International Studies and the World Affairs Council of Atlanta. And more than a dozen other Atlanta-based organizations participated in the event.
