simulacra

messing with another landmark

the people at the fox have done shit and stepped back in it --- joe patten is a saint in preservation circles --- and the assholes controlling atlanta landmarks now can't be bothered to make any accomodation that might affect "operations" --- the fox wouldn't even be there now were it not for patten ---- jerks

tearing up the hyatt

"no more retro" is the ajc's idiotic headline ---

lubricating life

"But a new paper in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research suggests that — for reasons that aren't entirely clear — abstaining from alcohol does actually tend to increase one's risk of dying even when you exclude former drinkers. The most shocking part? Abstainers' mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers."

somebody coulda screwed up their data, but it's a lovely thought anyhow --- i'm a believer in a couple of glasses on a daily basis, medicinally of course, and not for pleasure ---

lifestyles of the rich and forgotten

a nice big old house, if you like that sort of thing

new toy on the way

fall on the horizon

the door open all night long and no blast of thick humid air when we stepped out for dog's constitutional this morning --- nice

a great songwriter

george david weiss died monday

stoopid is as stoopid does

what brain decides that a banner of the lincoln memorial would be the perfect backdrop for glenn beck's rally that is actually in front of the lincoln memorial?

"restoring honor" --- gimme a break

plasticated floors

i slathered my cement floor with a polymer coating today, which is not a new treatment, but is one that has not been renewed in five years --- it would look better if i stripped it back and started over, but so far there have been other things that i had rather do than that --- anyway now the dog hair will more readily blow to the corners, making it easier to collect --- another coat or two and it'll be fun watching the guys sliding across it when they're chasing each other --- i'll try to do it more regularly from now on ---

ailing landmarks

"The sprawling mansion at 87 15th Street — better known as The Castle — has been sold at auction for the bargain basement price of $951,000."


 poor house --- another victim of inman park properties

religious bigotry

"Perhaps the most surprising thing about the news this week that 1 in 5 Americans believes that Barack Obama is Muslim is that so many people greeted the news as a surprise. Americans taking out their discrimination toward minority religions on the president of the United States is as American as apple pie; the custom has been going on as long as there has been a presidency. George Washington was the subject of widespread grumbling that he was a more loyal Mason than he was a Christian. . . . It's the nature of how we conflate political frustration, economic anxiety, and concern about the changing fabric of our identity."

and plenty of people thought lincoln was a catholic and that roosevelt was a jew---

the heat can't last forever either

 not to belabor the point or anything but . . .

"Atlanta ranks third, with 69 days above normal. Hotlanta was above normal highs for 29 days in June, 24 days in July and 16 days of August (again, up to Aug. 17). Its record of 105, set in 1980, still stands."

which means we have had approximately a week of the usual hot weather, and the rest has been just plain stinking-ass hot

easing out of the dog days

it was almost nice out this morning walking the dog but i'm waiting for the mornings in the mid-60s they're forecasting for this weekend ----

the commute from hell

the world's biggest fish bowl

"The Aquarium's eight million gallons of water house the largest collection of aquatic animals, and a new dolphin exhibit set to open this fall will bring that number up to a whopping 10 million gallons of fresh and salt water under its roof."

i still haven't been there --- but then i haven't been to disney world either

defending blastocytic american

"A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked Obama administration regulations expanding stem cell research. The nonprofit group Nightlight Christian Adoptions contends that the government's new guidelines will decrease the number of human embryos available for adoption."

i do not understand this obsession with the "lives" of blastocytes --- it's just wierd

august can't last forever

being a dog

guinness' favorite combination is company and food --- he spent a good part of the evening waiting expectantly, or if backs were turned, trying to help himself --- i need a higher table

global cities

"We are at a global inflection point. Half the world's population is now urban -- and half the world's most global cities are Asian. The 2010 Global Cities Index, a collaboration between Foreign Policy, management consulting firm A.T. Kearney, and The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, reveals a snapshot of this pivotal moment. In 2010, five of the world's 10 most global cities are in Asia and the Pacific: Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, and Seoul. Three -- New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles -- are American cities. Only two, London and Paris, are European. And there's no question which way the momentum is headed: Just as more people will continue to migrate from farms to cities, more global clout will move from West to East."

the list of the 65 "top global cities" includes atlanner at #40

gsu continues its conquest of downtown

"Georgia State University bought the adjoining former Wyndham Garden Hotel and The Baymont Inn and Suites at 175 Piedmont Avenue for an undisclosed amount. The university plans to convert the properties, which have 453 rooms, into student housing."

faces of the damned, cont'd.

good riddance

extreme genealogy

"A maternal ancestor to all living humans called mitochondrial Eve likely lived about 200,000 years ago, at roughly the same time anatomically modern humans are believed to have emerged, a new review study confirms.... The results are based on analyses of mitochondrial DNA. Found in the energy-producing centers of cells, mitochondrial DNA is only passed down the maternal line, and can be traced back to one woman."

and her name was gladys

norks

"In what is either the beginning of the end of the Hermit Kingdom, or maybe the end of the beginning, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (that's North Korea to us; Norks to the intelligence community) has joined Twitter. . . .My advice to Kim is, stick with what you know: you're the Hermit Kingdom. You can't be the last insane despot on earth and be Tweeting."

a very funny post

the boom returns to midtown

the view from the thirteenth floor has been visually stable for a while now --- when i moved over here five years ago, it was construction crane city --- as many as a dozen just here in midtown and a whole lot more in buckhead --- a crane suddenly appeared over at tech a while back (just to the right of the palomar) and the building with the construction of which it is involved has now begun to emerge into view. I'm sure it won't be more than 5 or 6 floors, but, hey, it's something

freedom to aggravate

"A federal judge in Missouri ruled yesterday that a ban on political protests near funerals is unconstitutional. In 2006 Missouri legislators passed the ban in an attempt to thwart the Westboro Baptist Church."

it's past time for jesus to take that old fuk home --- yeah, he's never stoned anybody; but he would if he thought he could get away with it ---

barbarian resurgence

The Taliban on Sunday ordered their first public executions by stoning since their fall from power nine years ago, killing a young couple who had eloped, according to Afghan officials and a witness.

their fathers and siblings joined in the fun --- i guess it wouldn't do to carpet bomb that village, would it?

just like britain and russia, we have wasted ourselves on afghanistan ---

those crazy chinese

this is actually under construction in beijing --- and if you haven't heard, china is officially the world's second largest economy, eclipsing japan in the 2nd quarter

why?

ask andrew

cb2

dennis o'hare said that cb2 opening at 1010 might be a sign "the recovery is taking hold" --- i don't know about that, but it's great to have a store on peachtree

greening snafc

gsa is creating a "green" roof on our building, and brian has an excellent report

Сергей Михайлович Прокудин-Горский

check out these images --- russia in color in the first decade or so of the twentieth century --- the ones of samarkand are especially good --- scroll on down at that link to find the thumbnails  ---
another one from sullivan

cigarettes kill

she quit smoking last christmas because she couldn't see the end of the match --- dead at 102

a newly discovered critter

"Unlike most primates, these titi monkeys form lifelong relationships. Researchers reported that pairs are often seen sitting on a branch with their tails entwined. They usually have one baby per year."

the cattleya

my favorite, opening today

winning the fight

It seems to me that we are witnessing the much faster collapse of the anti-gay marriage case - on logic and public opinion - than almost anyone anticipated. It is as if suddenly, one consensus has imploded and another begun.

i'll say --- all the nastiness of 2004 seems a long time ago

abg

the garden is open till 10 on thursdays thru september --- it was hot and sweaty tonight but still nice ---

california leading the way

the judge denied a stay on his prop 8 ruling, although he put a stay on this decision until august 18 --- tony perkins has a sad

germany, 1906

in color no less --- a lot of them not captioned, but some are --- see the rest, more than a hundred of them

like the zwinger in dresden, destroyed along with the rest of the city by allied carpet bombing and the resultant fire storm in february 1945, but reconstructed after the war

















and this lovely field at a place called dachau




thank sullivan for this one

marking time

the sunset is entering the ten peachtree place phase --- when sunset emerges from the other side, surely to god it will no longer be hot

faces of the damned redux

y'all need to read about newt

"It doesn't matter what I do," he answered. "People need to hear what I have to say. There's no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn't matter what I live."

he's been called "the soul" of the republican party --- the man who tried his best to ruin clinton's presidency --- and now threatens to run for president in 2012

how low will we go?

By using his position as an elected representative to publicly insinuate President Barack Obama isn't American despite ample proof to the contrary, he has declared himself a paranoid, right-wing racist who cannot accept that a dark-skinned man with a non-European name is legitimately American. Yesterday Georgia Republicans decided they want Deal to lead our state government for the next four years.

i like to think that barnes will have an easier chance beating his ass than he would ms. handel's --- even so it's depressing that so many people want that bigot to be governor --- and knowing georgia, it's a toss-up of a race at best

king cotton

Whitney -- a nephew several times removed  of cotton gin inventor Eli Whitney  -- found there is less use for businesses like his in the place where cotton was once king.Whitney's great-grandfather, his grandfather and his father were in the cotton business of marketing cotton for the farmers who grew it. But now, 142-years after S.M. Whitney Co. opened in Augusta, it is closing.

the king is dead; long live the king, whatever it is these days

thnx andrew

desperate people

30,000 at tri-cities plaza in e. pt., just to get on a waiting list for section 8 housing --- i thought the great american free-enterprise system was supposed to take care of this after we tore down all the public housing

how to ruin a landmark

Under a pact expected Wednesday, funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management LP in Los Angeles and Avenue Capital Group in New York are paying $197 million for Sea Island, a stunningly cheap price for the 84-year old resort famed for its four golf courses, exclusive clubs and hosting such events as the 2004 Group of Eight summit. Despite its fame, it hit the wall financially when it couldn't repay the debt taken on by fourth-generation chief Bill Jones III to finance a large renovation.

actually the "renovation" included demolition of the original cloister (1928) --- junior wanted to make his mark

architecture as negrobilia

it was quite a genre of eateries at one time ---  mammy's shanty on peachtree, johnny reb's dixieland on roosevelt highway, and the swamp guinea, a weird place we used to go to out in madison county when i was at uga where you drive in to the sight of a negro effigy hanging from the upright tongue of a wagon --- these have all now been sanitized into cracker barrels and sonny's ---  aunt fanny's was the original

see yhere

crappy weather

Since July 10, the data paint an even glummer picture: nine hours a day of low cloud cover, compared to the seasonal average of 1.6 hours. This summer appears to be the most cloud-shrouded in Seattle since measurements were started in 1951. . . . San Diego experienced its coolest July in nearly 80 years. At Half Moon Bay near San Francisco, only eight hours out of the past 11 days have been cloud free.

meanwhile thousands are dying in russia from the heat and grain exports have been embargoed as their wheat fields wither

i guess it's not so bad here

filling up empty space

qb2 will be open at 1010 friday the thirteenth --- and work has resumed on the spi club, which some in the neighborhood fought tooth and nail to prevent

whassup, dude?

what idiot shows up at the fulton county courthouse and tries to go through the metal detectors with 19 bags of weed in his hip pocket? --- this idiot, that's who

is anybody sitting there?

another benefit of tax cuts for the rich

Does anyone doubt that once a society ceases to be able to afford schools, public transit, paved roads, libraries and street lights -- or once it chooses not to be able to afford those things in pursuit of imperial priorities and the maintenance of a vast Surveillance and National Security State -- that a very serious problem has arisen, that things have gone seriously awry, that imperial collapse, by definition, is an imminent inevitability?

once a society chooses not to be able to afford these things . . . .

a musical interlude

oh, god

“We haven’t seen anything like this before: a really deep recession combined with a really extended period, maybe as much as eight years, all told, of highly elevated unemployment,” Shierholz told me. “We’re about to see a big national experiment on stress.”

that is so very depressing, even for one fully employed, through the grace of the goddess or fsm or whatever

the library of congress is a wonderful thing

A crossroads store, bar, "juke joint," and gas station in the cotton plantation area. Melrose, Louisiana, June 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Going to town on Saturday afternoon. Greene County, Georgia, May 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

thnx to brain for bringing this collection to our attention --- seventy wonderful color images from the early 1940s --- follow the link here

preserving what's left

sandy springs is turning the point above morgan falls dam into a nice park ---- it's a fantastic view --- when they cleared away the privet, bamboo, and kudzu, theydiscovered a home site that everybody had forgotten about --- the house was probably built by Joseph Power in the late 1820s, before he moved across the river in the 1830s --- three of his sons built log houses for their own families on the cobb county side of the river in the early 1840s, two of which are still standing, one of which is at the core of hyde farm --- another son took the old house here and operated a ferry just below where there was a ford in the river

the great stone chimney once stood at one end of a log house and is a very fine piece of craftsmanship --- it had a typical lean, caused by erosion of the ground at that end of the house and was in desperate need of repointing --- the city of sandy springs was on the verge of just knocking it down and using the stone to build a "fire pit," and when some people pointed out that might not be the thing to do, they said they were gonna "reconstruct" it --- caused a big brouhaha, but fortunately a lot of voices got their attention and jack pyburn, one of the best hist. pres. architects around, was able to design a very ingenious support system that obviated the need for deconstruction, which would have destroyed the very craftsmanship they thought they were "preserving"

they're real proud of it now

thnx for the "after" images, morning

justice for all

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. – Judge Vaughn Walker.

Perhaps the most important political finding that Walker made was his conclusion that the fact that Prop 8 passed as a voter initiative was irrelevant. That the majority of California voters supported Proposition 8 is irrelevant, as "fundamental rights may not be submitted to [a] vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections." It does not appear that Walker allowed for an immediate hold on his decision, which means that the defense must seek one from a higher court. Until then, gay couples could be legally allowed to marry in the state of California.

this will go to the supreme court in the next two years, along with doma --- we're getting there