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Posted inColumns, Michelle Hiskey & Ben Smith

An artist’s walk through the valley of censorship

by Ben Smith

After censorship, can there be reconciliation? That was the question for Atlanta artist Ruth Stanford on a recent visit with her to the re-installation of “A Walk Through the Valley” at Kennesaw State University. A month ago, the university’s president ordered her artwork removed from the Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art as controversial.

It’s back after the sides found common ground, but the notoriety forced Stanford to scrutinize her comfort zone as an artist and sort out the ambiguities exposed by an issue that seems black and white. Is it possible for an introvert to take a stand as an artist?

Posted inDavid Pendered

New airport business alliance similar to successful economic development program in Gwinnett County

by David Pendered

The newly formed Atlanta Aerotropolis Alliance bears a striking resemblance to Partnership Gwinnett, a public-private initiative that has created a strong record of economic development in Gwinnett County.

Each entity was formed to attract jobs and investments to their respective areas. One distinguishing point is that the aerotropolis alliance was convened by the Atlanta Regional Commission, whereas Partnership Gwinnett is based at the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce.

Posted inTom Baxter

Political alienation bubbles up in Senate race, to Perdue’s advantage

Avatar photo by Tom Baxter

Last week a century or so of political experience sat around a lunch table in Cobb County and pondered this question: Has there ever been a U.S. Senate race in which neither the Democratic nor the Republican candidate had previously held elected office?

We’re pols, not political scientists, so there may have been some race we don’t know about or overlooked. But all agreed that we’d never covered or worked on a race of that description. It may be time for a little more rigorous research into that question, because just such a race has appeared on the horizon, shimmering like a pundit’s mirage.

If Michelle Nunn and David Perdue become their party’s nominees, their race would be a striking sign of the American public’s alienation from politics and distrust of incumbency in general.

Posted inUncategorized

Georgia’s natural world

by Jamil Zainaldin

Georgia’s history is closely tied to our natural environment, which has been the source of economic opportunity and a destination for leisure activity, a magnet for explorers and tourists, an inspiration for writers and other artists.

Our natural world — Georgia’s wilderness — is of ineffable quality, breathtaking beauty, mysterious beckoning. Our expansive landscape is gifted with a range of natural diversity. The records of Europe’s earliest visitors document their astonishment at the variety of flora and fauna they encountered in this place.

Posted inGuest Column

City of Atlanta must carefully weigh its future transit and streetcar options

by Teresa Johnston

By Guest Columnist HEATHER ALHADEFF, president of Center Forward, a land-use and transportation consulting business

The reaction to Maria Saporta’s recent streetcar/BeltLine articles produced an unusually hot-tempered string of comments.  From my perspective as a transportation planner, what seems to be muddying the waters of this debate is a natural misunderstanding of the long-term, multipurpose benefits of a variety of transit routes.

Commenters tended to lump all trip purposes and transportation technologies together.  A more nuanced understanding could help the dialogue become more productive.

Posted inGuest Column

City of Atlanta must carefully weigh its future transit options

by Teresa Johnston

By Guest Columnist HEATHER ALHADEFF, president of Center Forward, a land-use and transportation consulting business

The reaction to Maria Saporta’s recent streetcar/BeltLine articles produced an unusually hot-tempered string of comments.  From my perspective as a transportation planner, what seems to be muddying the waters of this debate is a natural misunderstanding of the long-term, multipurpose benefits of various transit routes.

This includes a common propensity to lump all trip purposes and transportation technologies together.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Emory University’s contest lifts region’s role in global health arena

by David Pendered

Teams from Dallas and Baltimore took home top honors, but in a sense Emory University and metro Atlanta were the real winners in this weekend’s International Emory Global Health Case Competition.

The event drew to Emory’s campus more than 140 top students and scholars from the U.S. and countries including Australia, Canada and Sweden. For these students, Emory was the venue to propose and debate 21st century strategies for the World Health Organization.

Posted inEleanor Ringel Cater

‘Noah’ – Creator wants animals to survive flood, but maybe not mankind

Avatar photo by Eleanor Ringel Cater

About the only thing Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah” has in common with the Bible’s Noah are an Ark, a Flood, and a guy named Noah.

Oh, there’s also Mrs. Noah and their three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth. And all those animals,

After that, the versions are radically different. And I think Aronofsky’s is better. Well, maybe not better, but at least more entertaining.

It’s still — basically — the same old story. God, referred to here as “The Creator,” tells Noah (Russell Crowe) a world-soaking deluge is on the way. God/The Creator does so via a series of visions or, perhaps, bad dreams Noah has.

Posted inLatest News

Andrea Young takes leave from Center for Civil and Human Rights’ board because of King Estate’s concerns

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

To avoid a possible stand-off between the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr. and the soon-to-open National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Andrea Young has taken a leave from the board of the attraction now scheduled to open on May 30.

Andrea Young is executive director of the Andrew Young Foundation, which is named after her father, the former mayor of Atlanta who also was an ambassador to the United Nations as well as a civil rights leader who worked side-by-side Martin Luther King Jr.

Posted inLatest News

Former Mayor Shirley Franklin wishes she had done more to help city’s poor

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

Former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin gave a refreshingly candid interview to an  online national journal about how she wished she had done more to address the lack of upward income mobility in the city while she was leading the city.

The article appeared in related publications — “The National Journal” and “The Atlantic Cities: Place Matters” — on March 24. It was written by Nancy Cook, who asked Franklin about the recent report from the Equality of Opportunity Project that ranked Atlanta as one of least likely cities in the country for low-income children to be able to climb out of poverty.

Franklin told Cook that poverty in Atlanta “has been pretty intractable” going back to the 1970s.

Posted inDavid Pendered

MLK Historic District to be bolstered as AHA plans tear-down of building

by David Pendered

The proposal to demolish a building owned by the Atlanta Housing Authority in the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic District is advancing even as the city expects to enact in May a set of new zoning regulations to create an entire landmark district in the area.

The AHA-owned building is located along Auburn Avenue in the heart of the proposed commercial and institutional section of the landmark district. Fulton County property tax records list the owner as Westside Revitalization Acquisitions, LLC. AHA’s report to HUD lists the building as one of its potential tear-downs.

This particular structure, built in 1981, may not be worth saving – an economic review panel will help determine the building’s fate. But the proposed demolition does raise the question of protecting and promoting the King historic district as it is poised for revitalization spurred by the Atlanta Streetcar.

Posted inLatest News

Ted Turner: ‘I wouldn’t have moved the Braves to Cobb County’

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

Ted Turner, the former owner of the Atlanta Braves, finally let the world know Wednesday that he would not have moved the baseball team to Cobb County.

Since the deal was announced last November, Turner has been uncharacteristically reserved when asked to comment about the Atlanta Braves plans to leave Turner Field in downtown Atlanta in favor of building a new $672 million stadium in Cobb County. The plan is for the Atlanta Braves to play in a new Cobb stadium in time for the 2017 baseball season.

But during a “fireside chat” at the Technology Association of Georgia’s 2014 Georgia Technology Summit (gathering coincidentally at the Cobb Galleria Centre), Turner let his feelings be known for the first time.

Posted inDavid Pendered

MARTA’s mystery rider program, up for renewal, grew from federal ADA lawsuit filed by disabled riders

by David Pendered

When MARTA on Wednesday begins its latest effort to improve customer service, it will be renewing a program that grew out of a federal court order issued in 2002 to protect disabled riders.

MARTA is soliciting proposals for a mystery rider program. A central issue is MARTA’s compliance with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

The program goes by the sort of fun-sounding name of, “MARTA’s Mystery Customer Program.” The name harkens to the mystery customers who check on retail clerks to advise management on how well the clerks treat customers.

Posted inLatest News

John Portman donates $2.5 million to Georgia Tech; agrees reluctantly to have dean’s chair named after him

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

Atlanta architect John Portman has always had a soft spot in his heart for Georgia Tech — the institution where he received his architectural degree in 1950.

Going back several years, Portman let it be known that he would be interested in supporting Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture in a significant way financially.

Posted inColumns, Michelle Hiskey & Ben Smith

Young playwright brings comic touch to Atlanta

by Ben Smith

This week, Louisa Hill, a young playwright who learned to keep going in Atlanta and win national awards for making audiences laugh, will return to her alma mater to speak at the 43rd annual Agnes Scott Writers’ Festival. Organizers say Friday’s scheduled reading by Hill, who graduated in 2009, almost certainly marks the fastest turnaround for a former student to be invited back as a headliner.

With a history of drawing luminaries such as John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, Reynolds Price, James Dickey, Eudora Welty and Robert Penn Warren, the Writers’ Festival often features one alumna whose Agnes Scott education helped launch her success in writing poetry, plays or books.

Posted inSaba Long

Forty days of frenzy at Georgia legislature leaves children behind

by Saba Long

Forty. It is a number of biblical significance. Oftentimes in the Old Testament, God used the number 40 as a time period of intense trials and testing of the peoples’ faith. Goliath terrorized the Israelites for 40 days before a young shepherd boy hurled a stone toward his forehead. Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness fasting and was then tempted by the devil.

And in just 40 days, the Georgia General Assembly blazed through the legislative session in what seemed to be a race to take the logic out of lawmaking.

Too frequently, Georgia’s children take the proverbial bullet for legislators and “suits” lacking the spine to stand up to interest groups and the old way of doing things. We saw it firsthand this session with the attempted rush job at privatizing foster care. But perhaps where this behavior hurt Georgia families the most was with the failure to pass the medical marijuana and autism insurance bills.

A personal friend of mine watched with deep disappointment the hacking of and eventual demise of the autism insurance bill. He and his longtime partner have already spent thousands in healthcare costs associated with their toddler’s autism.

Posted inLatest News

Video special – the recent wedding of Andrea Young and Jerry Thomas

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

Two dear friends — Andrea Young and Jerry Thomas — got married on March 8 at La Fontaine Bleue in Glen Burnie, Md. near Washington, D.C.

It was a relatively small affair that included family and close friends — Andrea’s father, former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, gave her away. Olympics athlete Edwin Moses was Thomas’ best man. Yolanda Renee King, the daughter of Martin Luther King III, and his wife, Arndrea, was the flower girl.

Here is a video (produced by AJ Production) that features highlights of the wedding and events leading up to the ceremony. Be sure to have a tissue handy. It is certainly helps reaffirm the notion that two people can find love after they’ve outlived their youth.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Traffic relief, transit upgrades funded in ARC’s five-year spending plan

by David Pendered

A new plan due for initial adoption Wednesday by the ARC board shows the extent to which $7-plus billion can go toward improving metro Atlanta’s transportation network.

Planners talk up the will-do projects contained in this five-year spending proposal, rather than lofty visions in the Atlanta Regional Commission’s long-range transportation plan. The ARC’s 2040 plan update is up for adoption, as well.

This strategy of focusing on the five-year plan addresses some realpolitiks: Regional traffic is building after the recession, while transportation funding remains scarce; A vote to adopt a regional transportation plan will show ARC’s board is not immobilized by disagreement over who should be elected as a citizen board member.

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