Home » Posts

Posts

Posted inEleanor Ringel Cater

Movies in 2013 — an ode to Peter O’Toole plus other hits and misses

Avatar photo by Eleanor Ringel Cater

The single most important thing that happened in 2013 was we lost Peter O’Toole, in mid-December, at age 82.

He was supposed to have died sometime in the 1970s. Hard living and hard drinking can do that to a man.

But O’Toole was more than man. He was something fantastical. Not simply larger than life but somehow beyond the petty realities of life. The tales of his drunken carousing with Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Albert Finney, Michael Caine, Sean Connery — all those beautiful Brits did for movies what the Beatles did for music. That scandalous mix of creativity and reckless abandon.

O’Toole’s legend may have been better served b if he had gone in the 70s when proper attention would’ve been paid. It’s fine he was lumped together with the likes of James Gandolfini and Joan Fontaine (who died on the same day as O’Toole). But Paul Walker and Corey Monteith?

Posted inLatest News

Arthur Blank: New stadium plans were “nice distraction” from 2013 season

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

A reflective Arthur Blank expressed “a big disappointment” in the 4-12 outcome of 2013 season of the Atlanta Falcons, but the team’s owner said he has been spending the last several months focusing his energies on the future.

It didn’t hurt that Blank was devoting part of his time working on the development of a new $1.2 billion retractable-roof football stadium, which is scheduled to open in time for the 2017 season.

“It was a nice distraction in a difficult season,” Blank said of the stadium development. “It was able to take my mind off the season. We have a great stadium design. We will have the ground-breaking this spring.”

Posted inColumns, Michelle Hiskey & Ben Smith

Auburn chaplain’s ‘broken road’ to BCS title game

by Ben Smith

At the start of the 2013 college football season, Chette Williams, chaplain of the Auburn University Tigers, said he told a reporter, “I hope our football team scores a lot of touchdowns for Jesus.”

Williams had no idea what miracles were coming, the preternatural last-second shifts of fortune that enabled Auburn to beat huge rivals—Georgia and No. 1-ranked Alabama—and end up squaring off against Florida State University tonight in the NCAA college football championship.

Williams documented his experiences in the 2013 book, “The Broken Road: Finding God’s Strength and Grace on a Journey of Faith” (Looking Glass Books). It chronicles the three-year spiritual climb by the Auburn players and coaches to their previous national championship at the end of the 2010 season.

Posted inLatest News

MAP International CEO Michael Nyenhuis to be CEO of AmeriCares

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

Georgia-based MAP International’s longtime president and CEO — Michael Nyenhuis — will become president and CEO of Stamford, Ct.-based AmeriCares, one of the top 20 charitable organizations in the United States.

Nyenhuis, who has been with MAP, a Christian global health organization, for nearly 19 years —14 as its president and CEO, will leave his post at the end of January. MAP is co-headquartered in Atlanta and Brunswick, the site of its major distribution center.

“I love MAP, its work and people and leave it in good shape and in good hands,” Nyenhuis wrote in an email before sending out the news release.

Posted inMaria's Metro

Once a regional hero, Norcross Mayor Bucky Johnson loses ARC board seat

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

On Dec. 4, Norcross Mayor Bucky Johnson came one vote shy from being elected chairman of the Atlanta Regional Commission.

Then 15 days later, his fellow mayors in Gwinnett County ousted him as their representative on the ARC board in one of the most abrupt whiplashes of regional power in recent Atlanta history.

The move is all the more symbolic given that Johnson led the metro area to its greatest moment of cooperation in October 2011 when he chaired the Atlanta Regional Transportation Roundtable.

Posted inGuest Column

Let’s jumpstart infrastructure projects with new public-private partnerships

by Teresa Johnston

By Guest Columnist CHARLES WHATLEY, managing director of UurbanIS USA, an advisory firm focused on Public-Private Partnerships

In a globally competitive marketplace – inside or outside the perimeter or across the river – are nearly irrelevant designations.

It is time that the Atlanta region start to consider cooperative ways to finance and deliver lifeline infrastructure projects. While community scale governance has benefits, there are few advantages to small scale infrastructure development and delivery.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Unlike New York, Atlanta’s mayoral inauguration expected to be mild

by David Pendered

Unlike New York City’s mayoral inauguration last week, little controversy is expected to surround Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed as he takes the oath of office Monday.

Atlanta has a history of low-key mayoral inaugurations. It’s just not the Atlanta way for politicians to swing for the fences at these rites of passage. That wasn’t the case in New York on Jan. 1, when a pastor speaking from the inaugural podium referred to “the plantation called New York.”

Likewise, Gov. Nathan Deal and other politicians may offer new insights but probably won’t stir the hornet’s nest in speeches at the Eggs and Issues breakfast to be hosted Jan. 15 by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.

Posted inLatest News

Woodruff Arts Center sells 14th Street Playhouse to SCAD

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

The Woodruff Arts Center has sold the 14th Street Playhouse to the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) for $1.9 million.

The proceeds from the sale will be reinvested in the community by supporting artists and cultural organizations.

SCAD will use the 14th Street Playhouse space to support its growing enrollment and to better serve its film and television degree programs, which were launched at the Atlanta campus during the fall of 2013.

The 14th Street Playhouse was gifted to the Woodruff Arts Center in 1991 by the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta when prior owners faced financial issues.

Posted inLatest News

King Center’s Salute to Greatness dinner to honor boxer Muhammad Ali

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By Maria Saporta

The King Center will honor former heavy weight champion and humanitarian Muhammad Ali at its annual Salute to Greatness dinner on Jan. 18 at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta hotel.

The Salute to Greatness dinner is the major annual fundraising event for the King Center.

The dinner also will honor the Xerox Corp. as well as the One Billion Rising Campaign and its founder — Eve Ensler, a Tony award-winning playwright and founder of VDay; and Khalida Brohi, a Pakistani women rights activist.

Posted inDavid Pendered

MARTA recruiting bus drivers with “excellent customer service skills”

by David Pendered

MARTA is beginning the New Year with a job fair to hire full-time bus operators.

The jobs provide benefits and pay from $13.68 to $19.54 an hour. The jobs fair, for an unspecified number of drivers, is slated from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday at MARTA’s headquarters, located adjacent to the Lindbergh Station.

The hiring program is part of MARTA’s focus on restoring levels of customer service that were trimmed to meet the financial rigors of the Great Recession. MARTA GM Keith Parker has made it clear that MARTA must appeal to riders who have the choice of using the system or driving their own vehicle.
For this jobs fair, the attention to customer service is evident in the first sentence of a flyer:

“MARTA is currently recruiting for professional, customer focused full-time bus operators.”

Posted inLatest News

A review of ‘Grudge Match’ – a witty comedy with De Niro and Stallone

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

By David Luse

The comedy duo Robert De Niro and Sylvester Stallone isn’t the same witty friendly chemistry as Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn. It’s exactly the opposite; witty antagonists throwing smart verbal jabs at each other that has the same effect on the stomach that the aforementioned duo brings.

If you’re as old as the people fighting, bring some Tums in the theater with you and leave your false teeth at home lest you want to hit the back of the head of the person in front of you due to laughing spasms. Who am I kidding, you won’t remember!

Razor Sharp (Stallone) is a simple, but charming and good-natured character who can be likened in personality to the lovable and dunce-like Rocky.

Posted inLatest News

We wish you a wonderful holiday

Avatar photo by Maria Saporta

Dear SaportaReport Readers:

We are hoping you are enjoying the holiday season.

During these two weeks, our postings will be a bit irregular as we spend time with friends and family — recharging our batteries for the coming year.

We will resume our normal schedule with regular postings by Monday, Jan. 6, 2014, and you can look forward to our weekly email update resuming on Tuesday morning, Jan. 7.

Thank you all for being loyal readers of SaportaReport. We look forward to offering you insightful, entertaining and thought-provoking columns and stories in 2014.

Happy holidays and a Happy New Year to all of you.

Maria and the entire SaportaReport team

Posted inDavid Pendered

Former EPA administrator discusses Georgia Power rate case, role of nuclear power in nation’s energy mix

by David Pendered

Georgia’s utility regulator made the right decision in allowing Georgia Power to raise rates to pay for power plant upgrades before the work is complete, according to former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman.

“What that does is prevent a cliff from developing, where you have to recover costs all at once,” Whitman said. “We have aging infrastructure. That’s a challenge everyone is facing across the country.”

Whitman spoke with saportareport.com discuss her concerns about a guest column on solar power. The conversation covered a variety of policy issues related to the nation’s power supply and delivery system.

Posted inUncategorized

The Making of a Southerner

by Jamil Zainaldin

Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin’s heritage extends back to Georgia’s antebellum planter elite, and includes a governor, judge, state supreme court justice, and founder of the University of Georgia Law School (not to mention a county named in honor of her family).

The Lumpkins also contributed sons to the Confederacy’s war effort, and like their planter neighbors, experienced the war’s aftermath as a personal and economic catastrophe.

Posted inColumns, Michelle Hiskey & Ben Smith

In Steve Walton’s lights, holidays on the edge

by Ben Smith

Steve Walton’s Christmas display around his Virginia Highland bungalow features a manger and baby Jesus without mom and dad, a monstrous snowman’s head and the effigy of an elderly woman who apparently got run over by a reindeer.

There are no flashing holiday lights, dime store decorations or blow up Santas. His displays are funny and edgy, sometimes quite dark and suggestive of a sense of longing for an artist who has experienced considerable loss in his life.

He moved on with his life by turning discarded stuff into elaborate, seasonal lawn displays. After the death of his partner in 1989, “I started to see the yard as a palette, not a chore,” said Walton, 59, last week.  “It was very therapeutic.”

Gift this article