hersh

the woman in 1302

she's the only person on the hall, i think, to whom i have not spoken a single time----i have only seen her a couple of times, and she seemed kinda mad about things----she's been trying to sell her place----the last week or so every day when i come home from work i have heard this poor puppy crying and yelping and all like lonely puppies do----i thought about leaving a note, but . . . .today when i come home there are four little sticky notes on her door---the largest and probably the first read something like "i don't know if you know it but your poor little dog cries all day long," with the "all" triple underlined. Another said, "i can hear it too," and the last two said, "me too" and "ditto." i don't know what people are thinking to expect a puppy, probably only three or four months old, to happily spend the entire day by himself---

sturdy women

john portman was/is a philistine when it comes to historic architecture----he wrecked a great little building at the intersection of P'tree and P'tree Center Ave. across from sacred heart so that he could have a nice grassy lawn in front of what is now suntrust plaza, construction of which drove him to the edge of bankruptcy in 1992----ha!

still i kinda like the sculpture

viewpoint

that's still a very lame name, but they are building it anyway----

the ellis hotel

on 7 december 1946, the reportedly fire-proof winecoff hotel (it had no sprinklers or fire escapes) caught fire and before it was over 119 people were dead, mostly from smoke or jumping from the buidling, in what remains the country's worst hotel disaster---more would have been saved but that the atlanta fire department's equipment could only reach eight stories and the winecoff had fifteen----it had been built in 1913 by william h. winecoff, who moved into the hotel after his own house in ansley park was destroyed by fire---he and his wife were casualties of the 1946 fire---in 1951 the hotel reopened as the peachtree on peachtree hotel, but it was never entirely succefful---after a stint as a retirement home, it closed in the early 80s---it is now being reborn as the ellis hotel, and they are doing an outstanding job with the exterior at least---i can't wait to see what the lower two floors look like, since the original facade there was lost in the 1951 rehab--

horse smarts

an amazing routine, right up there with chris bliss, only this time a horse is doing it----

somerset heights

a view from robert's [soon-to-be] new home---

morning

charleston

i drove over to charleston this week for a site visit and some meetings, mostly on forts sumter and moultrie---i was a surprised at how little of the 1861 sumter remains---it got bombed to rubble during the war and only partially rebuilt after that, so the walls are only about half their original height---the city and the drive over were beautiful, it being spring and all----and the city's architecture kept me gawking a lot---during the day-long meeting in a conference room downtown, my view was out this semi-circular window with a view of the old courthouse and st. michael's, which has got to be the most beautiful church in america--

crank mail

the midtown beautification committee has scored its first major victory---after a cranky letter to Silk about the dead shrubbery on their patio and how it all was such a mess and did they ever go out on the street and all, two days later, the dead cypress were gone, the patio swept, and the pots and chairs straightened up---then today there are all these flowers and vines in some of the pots and it actually looks inviting----maybe they will give me a meal or two or something when they see how much it helps their business---nothing like crank letters to get some action--

how to honor one's confederate heritage

that crazy legislature of ours is debating a permanent declaration of april as "confederate heritage month" and the south's "war for independence"---

"Of course, certain people have issues with this display: Robert Hurst, the leader of the local Sons of Confederate Veterans group, calls the display "tasteless and offensive," and demanded the museum remove it."That display is extremely offensive. It's very tasteless," Hurst said. "What they've told us, as Southerners, as sons of the Confederacy, is that it's okay to offend us."

awwww, we done hurt its feelings----

Postcard depicting the lynching of Lige Daniels, Center, Texas, August 3, 1920. The back reads, "This was made in the court yard in Center, Texas. He is a 16 year old Black boy. He killed Earl's grandma. She was Florence's mother. Give this to Bud. From Aunt Myrtle."

it did it again

the sun set, that is--

mars

he presence of water would raise the possibility of at least primitive life forms existing there.... Two craters in the southern hemisphere that were originally photographed in 1999 and 2001 were examined again in 2004 and 2005, and the images yielded changes consistent with water flowing down the crater walls, according to the study.

remember this?

i'm sure you are all aware of the extremely grave potential for cultural shock and social disorientation contained in this present situation if the facts were prematurely and suddenly made public without adequate preparation and conditioning--Dr. Heywood Floyd in 2001: A Space Odyssey

i am convinced that we will find evidence of extra-terrestrial life in my lifetime (unless i die day after tomorrow or something)---which will give fundamentalists, creationists, and southern baptists a whole lot to think about---not that they would arrive at any kind of rational conclusion if they did, but at least everybody else would at last have clear and irrefutable proof of the stupidity of their beliefs---

dogs

so what is it with dogs?

flowers and cnn

took off work a little early and went down to the southeastern flower show---they always stick it at the far end of the congress center, which is almost to simpson street----i wasn't all that impressed with the landscaped gardens that they installed for the show---the individual plants and flowers are the best---
saw a side of atlanta i don't see too much---what all the conventioneers see, i guess---i didn't know that the westside of phillips arena has a gigantic cnn entrance---and i've noticed that they had done something to the top of 101 marietta but didn't know exactly what until tonight---ten years ago they post-modernized the building, which was a perfectly good glass box before, and called it centennial tower---gave it a stone base and this little doilie thing hanging over the top---well, now they have given the doilie colored lights that change in this pleasant little sequence---kinda cool---

creepy

A team of world-leading neuroscientists has developed a powerful technique that allows them to look deep inside a person's brain and read their intentions before they act.

dead people

nothing but anna nicole smith for two days---who gives a fuk if there's one less useless person in the world----oh, but she died like marilyn monroe, they say---bullshit---she was a money-grubbing harlot----meanwhile the 3,115th american soldier's life was wasted in iraq yesterday---who cares about that?

Even in Iraq, she was managing to take a course at the University of Maryland, the Baltimore Sun relates, adding: "Helping others was routine for the Marine corporal. She sponsored an African child through a mission charity. And when Pakistan was devastated by an earthquake last year, she and others in her unit were dispatched to the scene. She earned the Humanitarian Service Medal for her efforts.

and gary died 39 years ago today, another life wasted in war---

hahahaha

"Well, it seems that the military has gone around and fired a whole bunch of people who speak foreign languages — Farsi and Arabic, etc... For some reason, the military seems more afraid of gay people than they are against terrorists, but they're very brave with the terrorists ... If the terrorists ever got a hold of this information, they'd get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad," - congressman Gary Ackerman, to Condi Rice yesterday.

light

i hung the little hangy thing angela made for me on one of my bookcases---this time of year, the sun just before sunset catches it and throws an amazing array of shapes on the paper behind it---there are rainbows here and there in the dark areas, but it's the squares, triangles, and trapezoids that are so great---

thanks angela

the republican legacy

A New Orleans in rubble.
A Constitution in tatters.
A carefully cultivated international reputation in ruins.
A debased media.
A proud legacy of science and inquiry kneecapped by roving bands of Conservative theocrats.
A debt that will hag-ride us for a generation,
And an Iraq ablaze for the next 20 years.