“What do women want?” Sigmund Freud once famously asked.
Well, this particular woman does NOT want “A Dangerous Method,” David Cronenberg’s surprisingly tepid and disappointing about Freud and his colleague/rival Carl Jung.
Where is the Cronenberg of yore? The envelop-pushing genius behind such creepy cult classics as “The Brood,” “Dead Ringers” and “Videodrome?”
By Maria Saporta
Marcia Prewitt Spiller, headmaster of the Children’s School for more than two decades, has been named as the Woodward Academy’s vice president and dean for academic affairs beginning July 1.
Spiller will succeed Ron McCollum, Woodward’s vice president and headmaster, who is retiring after 33 years at Woodward Academy, which is located in College Park.
In addition to leading the Children’s School, Spiller is chair of the National
In less than seven months, Common Cause of Georgia went from being ignored on the steps of Atlanta City Hall to being challenged in the hot seat of the council’s Chamber over its role in the debate over $3 billion worth of airport concessions contracts.
Mayor Kasim Reed said the organization “stinks.” Councilmember H. Lamar Willis said it promotes a political campaign system that “reserves political office for the aristocracy of America.”
William Perry, the group’s executive director, responded from the hot seat: “If you don’t like the message, attack the messenger.”
By Maria Saporta
At the State of DeKalb County breakfast Thursday, CEO Burrell Ellis made a plea for “One DeKalb” and spoke against the “cityhood” efforts underway in communities such as Brookhaven.
It was the second annual State of the County breakfast, hosted by the Council for Quality Growth and the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce, that was held at the Thalia Carlos Community Center on Clairmont Road.
By Maria Saporta
Mark Lytle has been selected to become division director of the Georgia Centers of Innovation — an effort that seeks to accelerate the growth of six of the state’s strategic industries: aerospace, agribusiness, energy, life sciences, logistics and advanced manufacturing.
The Georgia Department of Economic Development, which is overseeing the Centers of Innovation along with the Georgia Research Alliance, selected Lytle, who has been with the department since 2002.
By Maria Saporta
Friday, December 30, 2011
The Atlanta Ballet is enjoying this holiday season, and it’s not just due to its annual crowd pleaser— “The Nutcracker.”
The Goizueta Foundation has awarded the Atlanta Ballet a $2 million grant — the second-largest single gift that the company has received in its 82-year history.
Arthur Jacobus, executive director of the Atlanta Ballet, said receiving the Goizueta gift was “a shining moment” for the organization.
The Atlanta City Council approved Tuesday night a $3 billion package of airport concessions.
The actual outcome was almost anti-climatic, coming as it did after almost five hours of debate. At times, the issue seemed to become a vehicle for various officials to vent their spleen over frustrations that have mounted as the selection process ground on four months longer than expected for a variety of reasons.
Check back for updates
After hearing an emotion-packed speech from Mayor Kasim Reed, who lambasted Common Cause of Georgia and its executive director, the Atlanta City Council voted to break until about 7:45 p.m. to hear legal advice and eat dinner.
The council is still clearing its throat over the $3 billion package of airport concessions put forward by Reed’s administration. The council has not discussed how late it intends to work before voting to approve, reject or delay the concessions package.
By Maria Saporta
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed on Tuesday used the platform of the Kiwanis Club of Atlanta to urge support for the penny sales tax for regional transportation that supposed to go before voters in July.
Reed, who was going from the Kiwanis Club lunch to the Atlanta City Council meeting where the issue of airport concessions was to be debated, welcomed the opportunity to talk about something else other than the city’s process of selecting new food, beverage and retail business for Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
“I’m going to have a pretty tough time at City Council today,” Reed said.
Check back for updates.
The Atlanta City Council continues this afternoon to debate the $3 billion package of airport concessions proposed by Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration.
The meeting began with comments from about 17 individuals who expressed their views on airporty contracts. The council then entered parliamentary position that allows the entire council to act as a committee to discuss the proposal – a position that allows for more conversation than permitted during a regular meeting, and which greatly extends the length of the meeting.
The Atlanta City Council is slated to vote Tuesday on a bundle of airport concessions contracts worth more than $3 billion over the next decade.
Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration started developing on the package well before January 2011, when it hosted a convention with the concessions industry. Now, despite the administration’s best efforts, the package seems to be embroiled in many of the questions of cronyism that have plagued Atlanta’s airport deals for years.
The general questions being raised are familiar in any major public-private venture. In this case, they boil down to two points:
Growing up, our family’s favorite holiday celebration was New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
Because of our Jewish heritage, we didn’t really celebrate Christmas (even though we almost always had a tree in our home, and some years we’d go to the Catholic church on Christmas Eve to hear Christmas carols).
And because we were non-practicing Jews, we really didn’t celebrate
Consumer advocate Clark Howard came home for Thanksgiving from his sophomore year in college and faced a very grim household. From the sad faces he found around his family’s dinner table, he knew something bad had just happened.
When the dishes were cleared from Clark’s holiday table, his father asked him to stay afterwards to talk with him alone. Clark’s first guess when he saw his relatives’ faces and his father’s “awful” face, was that his father was going to announce that he was dying, he told us in our Moments HD Video.
By Guest Columnist VAL PETERSON, first lady of Georgia Tech
Since coming to the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2009, one thing I have learned is that the City of Atlanta has truly benefitted from projects created by our students, faculty and alumni. From our skyline to Atlantic Station to the Beltline, Atlanta would be a very different place without Georgia Tech.
A new project is being proposed by Mike Messner, a 1976 Civil Engineering graduate who grew up in Atlanta and still cares deeply about our city. In Mike’s mind there is far too much non-productive real estate and not enough green space in Atlanta.
Atlanta native Peter Linz talks about finding his identity by becoming a Muppeteer:
“The character of Walter hits really close to home for me. I’ve always been an enormous Muppet fan who dreamed of one day working with the Muppets, and that’s basically who Walter is. How flipping crazy is that? It’s mind-blowing. I could have been cast as a monster or a chicken or someone’s right hand, but instead, I got cast to play the guy who is the world’s biggest Muppet fan who literally dreams of working with the Muppets. Apart from my wedding day and birth of my children, being cast as Walter, was one of the greatest moments of my life. I was beyond happiness.”
The Atlanta City Council is entering the final weekend of what is likely to be intense period of discussion over its scheduled Jan. 3 vote to award airport concessions contracts worth more than $3 billion.
The rumor mill abounds with reports that politically connected individuals, or their friends or relatives, stand to profit from their interests in some of the companies recommended by Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration. No reports can be verified now, in part because the administration is not revealing details about the proposals received.
The administration has taken the position that it is being as open and transparent as possible under state law.
By Maria Saporta
Friday, December 30, 2011
On his first day as the new president and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of America on Jan. 2, Jim Clark will be in Hartford, Conn. — the site of the founding of the organization in 1860.
And on his second day on the job, Clark will visit the A. Worley Brown Club in Norcross, a demonstration of how important metro Atlanta is to the nation’s top nonprofit youth organization — a title it has held for 16 consecutive years.
Based on John Le Carre’s 1974 best-seller, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy,” takes place in the mid ‘70s, when the Cold War is still in its Big Chill stage.
So, with a mole deeply burrowed into the inner circle of “The Circus” (as British Intelligence is called), something must be done to keep the Commies at bay. The Circus’s ringmaster, if you will, — code-named Control and played by John Hurt with a heavily furrowed brow and deep rasping voice — knows this. But he doesn’t know who said mole is.
Atlanta’s chief of the airport says there is no reason the Atlanta City Council should delay adopting a package of concessions contracts worth more than $3 billion, as was suggested Wednesday by Common Cause of Georgia.
“We believe that the city council will have had ample opportunity to study and review the RFP (request for proposals) process and recommendations of award in time for their Jan. 3 vote,” said Louis Miller, the airport’s general manager. “We will continue to make ourselves available to meet with any of the council members and discuss any questions and concerns that they may have.”
Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration delivered its list of recommended companies to oversee the food and drink establishments at the airport, along with some retailers. The process has been underway since January and now is four months behind the schedule Miller announced in March.
By Maria Saporta
The Civic League for Regional Atlanta will have a new chairman as of Jan. 1 — Robert Inman “Trey” Ragsdale III.
Ragsdale manages government and community relations for Kaiser Permanente. He also has been involved in a variety of government, business and civic groups in metro Atlanta including the Bank of North Georgia, the Children’s Museum of Atlanta, People to People International as well as several chambers of commerce.
