The next generation of public housing may have opened recently in Decatur. Trinity Walk provides affordable homes in green buildings on a sustainable campus, with on-site resources to address the nutritional and human service needs of residents.
Oprah Winfrey delivered the commencement address for Agnes Scott College in Decatur. Those expecting a life-affirming message from the media icon got their wish. But those hoping the billionaire guru would offer a glimmer of hope for a future White House bid were sorely disappointed.
Decatur’s City Commission agreed Monday to buy the United Methodist Children’s Home, located in the city. The $40 transaction adds 77 acres of greenspace to Decatur and provides the children’s home funds to refocus and expand the territory it serves.
Hope by Steve Saenz taken at the Decatur Square
This week’s theme is “Umbrella Coverage”
Downtown Decatur
This week’s theme is Night Lights.
Decatur by Kelly Jordan.
A former eye sore of a gas station in Decatur is to be rejuvenated into a community park once the soil is remediated in a process that could begin as early as Wednesday.
This week’s theme is “Gates, grates, screens and fences”
“Lookin’ down the alley in Decatur” by Kelly Jordan
Decatur Recreation by Kelly Jordan
Gardening during a recent torrential downpour with my very driven father—a 78-year-old golf pro and lay minister— brought back old lessons in resiliency and competition. In families like ours, standing up for your beliefs requires communicating across generations.
Practicing yoga created an awareness in Eric Jennings’ life that led him to establishing Bikram Yoga Decatur, or BYD, in 2002. As he became more aware of sex abuse claims against his mentor Bikram Choudhury, Jennings wrestled with distancing himself from his guru. For successful businesses, a name change can be a kiss of death.
Corinne Adams’ artistic vision saw past the shattered window of her VW Touareg and admired the nuggets of safety glass scattered like diamonds on the ground. Today the Buckhead photographer and mixed media artist creates cuffs, earrings, belt buckles and more from the glass remnants of car crimes and misadventures. C Glass accessories convey a message of hope and redemption, and often are given to mark a loss or difficult life event, as a message that what is broken can become something beautiful.
Snow flurries in downtown Decatur on Wednesday afternoon by Adam Shumaker
In north-central DeKalb County, my home is among thousands in the crosshairs of cityhood movements and proposed annexations. Count me among the otherwise sensible DeKalb County residents who rightly worry that a new city we’ve never heard of is going to take us over, or even worse, ignore us.
No one wants to be an unincorporated island surrounded by cities. But lots of us are in a pickle. Our zip code (30033) is Decatur, but we’re not in the city proper, and it doesn’t want us anyway.
Without men, you can’t spell menstruation. And that’s as far as most men want to read about this subject. But local men like Nathan Hilkert are manning up to encourage other men to pitch in for Days for Girls, a volunteer effort that targets a big barrier to educating girls in developing countries. When they have their periods, they miss school. Days for Girls prepares and delivers reusable feminine hygiene kits.
Men and boys play an incredibly important role in tackling the taboos around menstruation that isolate and weaken girls and help lead to sexual exploitation and violence.
Until you’ve been chased by an animal that’s foaming at the mouth, you haven’t really experienced the terror of rabies.
Recent reports of potentially rabid animals threatening humans have reminded me of my own encounter with a rabid cat that I trapped with a recycling bin in my DeKalb County backyard just as it leapt to attack me. While it sounds like a freak occurrence, it’s surprisingly common especially during our warmest months, and it’s dead serious.
Last Thursday, a 13-year-old boy strangled a fox that had bit him. He’s receiving precautionary anti-rabies treatment pending the outcome of tests to determine if the animal was rabid.
On a day that seemed so damp that fish could have come in through the door and floated out the windows, lovers of the writing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014) gathered at Kavarna coffeehouse in Decatur to pay their respects by reading from his timeless stories of families, war, death, and above all, the magic of love.
They came to 100 Readers of Solitude, named in homage to the author’s greatest novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien Anos de Soledad).” One by one they read vigorously, declaratively, and with humor, like Garcia Marquez wrote.
Let me guess. It’s barely two weeks into 2014 and you’re already wavering on your New Year’s resolutions. Maybe you’ve blown them altogether. Or if you’re like me, you haven’t even started them yet. What was supposed to be a fresh start is already a dead end.
Maybe we’ve got this all wrong. Susanne Fincher says the dead of winter is precisely the wrong time to setting out to change ourselves. She’s a Jungian psychotherapist, a licensed counselor, registered art therapist and a leading international expert on mandalas—sacred circles found throughout centuries and cultures. At the core of her work is the study and understanding of cycles and patterns that are universal.
Even though Walmart will likely take over Suburban Plaza shopping center in Decatur, Brian Sherman still isn’t giving up. Late last week, he stood among a couple of dozen placard-waving protesters from Good Growth DeKalb insisting Walmart can still be stopped.
Their unflagging commitment intrigued me. I stopped at their protest, feeling cynical in the wake of news that the Atlanta Braves will move to Cobb County. Why continue to fight Big Money, the Power, the Man, or whatever you call It when It always seems to get Its way? That was my question to Sherman, who at 70 has been fighting the fight since the 1960s.
“Because,” said Sherman rather defiantly, “We eventually win.”
When Fred Brown’s ex-girlfriend went to prison in 2011 and left their son in his care, he knew he had to change the pattern of his life. Brown was homeless and didn’t want Damari, then only 9 months old, to grow up like he did—seeing his first dead body on the street at six years old and getting so used to the sight that it “was no big deal” by the time he was an adult.
Last week, Brown told his story from the headquarters of re:loom, where he turns recycled clothing and textiles into rugs and other items. Re:loom is nonprofit that helped him find his way back by teaching him the ancient art of weaving, and it got a big boost when another grassroots Atlanta business—Spanx—began globally promoting re:loom.
Potential state takeover of Atlanta’s airport among issues raising concerns at City HallMay 17, 2018 - 8:42 pm
Atlanta councilmembers, mayor’s staff to discuss ‘honest government’ legislationMay 16, 2018 - 4:21 pm
All Georgia cities at credit risk from proposed City of Eagle’s Landing, Moody’s reportsMay 15, 2018 - 4:03 pm
Column: Trust for Public Land reaches fundraising goal for Westside parkApril 22, 2018 - 5:19 pm
Westside initiatives take root, ‘but there’s a long way to go’April 22, 2018 - 5:13 pm
Column: Civic Atlanta: Woodruff Arts Center gets $5.1 million grant to extend free arts programsApril 22, 2018 - 5:04 pm
