The once tepid issue of our state bird has become infused with politics as a battle begins to rage between conservationists defending our current feathered friend and industry-minded individuals with a different type of poultry in mind, the AJC reported.

Chris Cunningham -- owner of eight restaurants -- argues that the time has come for the chicken (a big revenue generator) to come home to roost as the state bird. In case you don't know, the current holder of that title in Georgia is the brown thrasher.

I suppose the underlying complaints from either side are that you don't want to eat a thrasher, and chickens aren't exactly emblematic of prestige, beauty or dignity. Presumably, the thrasher does possess the latter qualities, while the chicken indisputably possesses the former. So, which wins?

This just reminds me of the probably apocryphal story about choosing the national bird. Ben Franklin wanted the turkey. Everyone else wanted the eagle. We all know which won. Although Franklin argued that the turkey best symbolized the American spirit/struggle (we're wild and misshapen and common), the turkey was also seen as the more functionally appropriate choice. We eat turkey. We love turkey. We have turkeys in abundance. Not so with the eagle. It's aesthetically separate from our existence. It represents strength, perseverance, dominance and, ultimately, superiority. And symbolism always outweighs function when choosing representations.

The brown thrasher was chosen back in the 1930s because of its "beauty" and "nobility." It symbolizes the beauty of our state's rustic nature. The chicken doesn't symbolize anything positive. Other than food. And industry. But those just aren't the things that warrant the status of state bird. Do you really want your favorite fried meal to represent you?

Furthermore, it confounds me that Cunningham argues for the chicken because it's a dominant industry while admitting the fact that brown thrashers are a dominant sight in the state. If we should make whichever bird better dominates the landscape our state bird, then it becomes a bit of a toss-up. The catch is: Do you want to side with the bird that dominates the kitchen or the one that dominates the mountains?

What do you think? Is there a clear choice? Or are both weak choices? Or could my opinion just be easily thrown out as a case of city snobbery completely out of touch with the agribusiness that still drives our state? And if you do think the chicken is the right choice, do you think we should change the national bird to the turkey?

Atlanta got an inch of snow last night (with some sleet and freezing rain to boot). The city looks beautiful -- a mild winter wonderland. But we’re paying for it today when it comes to transportation. Overnight, the police received over 200 accident reports (double their average), and so far, police have tended to over 100 crashes, including one 29-car pile-up on the Perimeter, the AJC reported. Most metro-area schools closed, including those of the five central counties and their respective cities. Why so much drama, Atlanta?

 

It’s a common misconception about the South -- usually initiated by uninformed Yankees and then perpetuated by complacent denizens of Dixie -- that we can’t handle snow. This is particularly true in Atlanta. Just the other day, one of my college friends from New York who’s currently a law student at Emory laughed at the notion that the entire city was preparing to shut down just because of a forecast of an inch of snow. However, it’s ice, not snow, that’s the problem.

 

Atlanta is wonderful when it snows -- as long as it’s just a nice layer of fresh powder, not various inches like in the Great Blizzard of ’93. It’s that nasty side effect of snow with which the city cannot deal. When snow warms just enough after hitting the road to cause it to melt, and then the temperature drops just enough over night to freeze it, we get ice. Although we salted most major roads enough prior to this recent snowfall to protect against iced roads, we don’t have enough to ice all the area’s alleys and byways, so we’re left with lots of pockets of gravel that for the time should mostly go unused. With The Weather Channel projecting that lows will stay below freezing until next Thursday, it seems like matters are more likely to get worse before they get better, making melting and then re-freezing a real threat.

 

Today, I had to test out some of those patches because, like an idiot, I hadn’t gone grocery shopping prior to the flurries. All I had in my apartment to eat were peach salsa and Coke, so I braved the great outdoors. Long story short: It took me an hour to get a bagel, an odyssey which entailed my car skidding across a few lanes when trying to make a left turn on an icy center lane, along with a section of Roswell Road near Buckhead Five Points that was completely blocked off. Here are some tips that I culled from that experience that I’d like to pass along to you:

 

1. Don’t drive in the leftmost lanes. The central parts of roads tend to be iced-over the most.
2. Only drive on main roads. Sure, you’ll have to deal with traffic (and possible delays if there have been recent crashes), but you’ll be guaranteed that the city has at least tried to curtail the ice where you’re driving.
3. Drive slowly. Just because you don’t see any ice on Peachtree right now doesn’t mean that there won’t be some in a few feet. Areas that have received sunlight are mostly fine; areas that never receive sunlight because they’re always in the shade are hell frozen over. Bridges and overpasses are also going to be trouble, as they freeze (and re-freeze) first. The only thing worse than speeding on ice is breaking on it.
4. Don’t drive if you don’t have to. Let’s explore greener alternatives, such as walking … in the freezing weather. (Unfortunately, many buses have been stranded in the weather, so MARTA isn't the best option right now.)

 

For more advice on how to deal with snow, ice, etc., check out my poorly timed blog post from back in early December. What has been your experience with this inclement weather?

New Year's is less than 36 hours away. If you've been lucky enough to be overworked and undernourished following a month that's seen unemployment in the city rise to 10.1 percent (and office vacancies soar over 20 percent), then you, like I, probably haven't yet found time to draw up any resolutions. While I'm still working on mine (I think the main one will be: Have a life), I've come up with a few resolutions that I'd like the metro Atlanta area to make.

1. Transportation: My biggest gripe with this city was, is and always will be the state of transportation within whatever one chooses as its boundaries. Whether it's circumnavigating the greater metro area or getting from the Westside to Virginia-Highland (either without a car or with one and finding parking), intra-city travel is at best a hassle and at worst a modern equivalent of trekking the Wild West. If I were Atlanta, I'd resolve to: Finally do the BeltLine for the city, get a revamp of the Perimeter for northside, and erect some version of the Northern Arc for the outer 'burbs. And it would be great if we could implement these things in 2010, or the coming years -- not in a decade or two (let's not have another MARTA-esque delay). And, as someone who just got his second flat in half a year, I'd like to suggest that we at least fix the roads that we have. You know what I'm talking about: the potholes. I can't drive down Piedmont without it feeling like I'm driving on the Appalachian Piedmont. (Editor's note: I've had my car for six years, and during five of those years, I lived in the North; I never got a flat until I moved back to the A.) So, if I were Atlanta: FINALLY fix the potholes.

2. Business: We need some jobs (see above). The city (and state) used to have unemployment levels lower than the nation's levels, but we excelled beyond the nation's percent this past year. There's been talk of holding a jobs summit. There's been resistance along the lines of "You can't create demand, and you can't philosophize about work." However, we have to face the fact that the housing market isn't coming back anytime soon. The old model is broken; we need a new one. This seems like the best way to figure out how to move forward, economically. If I were Atlanta, I'd resolve to: Have the jobs summit. (Luckily, it seems like this one will actually happen, and in January to boot.)

3. Culture: I've lamented before about the city's (or at least Fulton's) unideal nightlife hours. Add to that the probable shuttering of various small, local theater outlets, and we have a cultural landscape teetering on drying up. If I were the ATL, I'd resolve to: Extend nightlife hours, use more government money to support and sustain the arts and other cultural institutions, and allow new clubs to open. This, however, leads to one big can of worms -- and my next issue.

4. Zoning: One of the things that I love about this city is that it developed organically. Look at the street patterns: There's no grid, just a flourishing of zigzagging streets that follow the logic of the land. Of course, this doesn't help with the traffic problems I discussed above, but the bigger issue is when it comes to figuring out what to put where along these winding roads. I'm talking about zoning. Just look at Cheshire Bridge to see how we've let parts of the city become a bit of a hodgepodge -- restaurants next to strip clubs next to housing developments. We need to start imposing some reason to our rhyme. If I were the A, I'd say: Plan areas with the intent to develop mixed-use areas that still manage to segregate based upon an overarching function (e.g., residential, entertainment), finally make the Fairlie-Poplar area an arts district, and encourage greenspace.

Feel free to add your own! It's almost cathartic to at least vent your angst about the A.

Central Connecticut State University analyzed U.S. cities with 250,000 residents or more and declared Atlanta the fifth most literate in the country -- Seattle took the win -- the AJC reported.

The study took a variety of factors into account, including amount and availability of education, Internet outlets, bookstores, libraries and newspapers. The study noted that although literate cities often also excel in other areas, such as singles scenes, they aren't guaranteed to sidestep shortcomings in presumably more directly correlated areas, such as employment.

With periodical output declining so significantly and talks of reducing library hours, I wonder what's to thank for our ranking? Strong showings by Georgia Tech and Georgia State, along with our other local colleges ... and UGA refugees from Athens?

As the study states, it's a fairly empty accomplishment (unemployment in the A hit 10.2 percent last month). To celebrate our increasingly nationally competitive literacy (up from sixth place last year) and pay homage to the fact that none of us will be able to afford such frivolities as new books for a good while, let's all recount our favorite books of yore. Mine: "Moby-Dick"; "The whale has no face" is my religion.

Georgia Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond wants to hold a jobs summit to combine thinkers from the public and private sectors to help draft a plan to get out of the current economic slump, now that our unemployment rate has hit 10.2 percent, the AJC's Biz Beat reported. Is a jobs summit the best way to address the state's crippling unemployment? Some commenters on the blog have noted that intellectuals are not directly connected to the market, implying that their input is insignificant and that the free market will be the only thing that will be able to ameliorate the employment problem.

What do you think? Is the supply-demand model the only thing that affects the economic picture? Is there any way that individuals can guide the market out of the jobs recession?

Starting Jan. 1, travelers caught going 85 miles per hour or faster on most Georgia roads, including Interstates, will face an additional $200 fine, the AJC reported. On two-lane roads (one lane each way), the fine will affect speeders breaking 75 miles per hour. The goal is to make the state's streets safer for all, though one can't help but notice that it should also increase the state's funds -- particularly given our residents' proclivities to use highways like racetracks, as Bob Dallas of the Governor's Office of Highway Safety noted. According to the state, a far-reaching publicity campaign to inform people about the new fine will go into effect today, only fifteen days until the fine goes into effect. Presumably this won't adversely affect Atlanta's traffic problems, which derive largely from things moving too slowly.

Up until now, I could confidently say that I'd never been pulled over for speeding in the ATL (in the North, that's another story); maybe those days are numbered. I guess I'll have to cut back on my casual, 100-miles-per-hour trips up Ga. 400. How do you anticipate this will affect your commute?

After a drought and a flood, metro Atlanta still has one major water issue left: Georgia's war with Alabama and Florida, which may be resolved before the respective governors end their terms.

Atlanta gets the majority of its water supply from Lake Lanier, a man-made lake created with the erection of the Buford Dam on the Chattahoochee River in 1956. However, since the 'Hooch feeds tributaries that flow into the Yellowhammer and Sunshine states, legally they have a right to part of the reservoir's water supply as well. Contentious legal battles between the three states have loomed for decades. Earlier this week, governors Sonny Purdue (Ga.), Bob Riley (Ala.) and Charlie Crist (Fla.) met in Montgomery and hope to come up with plans during the next few months for their respective legislative teams to OK before ending their sessions, Creative Loafing reported.

If all the Glenn Richardson personal drama dominates the Georgia General Assembly as has been predicted, then it's likely that this high hope will become yet another to fall by the wayside amidst representatives' squabbles. And even if it does get through this session, and states agree on the measure, there's still the matter of national congressional approval.

But, does this "water war" really matter? There's certainly a worst case scenario: The states divvy up a solution that will deny Atlanta use of Lanier (Alabama and Florida have complained that our metro area overuses the lake). But is it likely that such an agreement would be the final resolution? Should Atlanta be worried?

Two major transportation solutions are on the cutting room floor right now, but neither of them is the BeltLine.

 

Southface held a Sustainable Roundtable to discuss the future of Atlanta's public transit options last week, and the speakers offered up a few interesting solutions to some of the city's transportation problems, Saporta Report reported. One of the main things to come out of the conference was that Glenn Richardson's departure from the General Assembly is a good thing when it comes to approving public transit projects, as the representative was an ardent foe to public transit. However, it seems like the main project that they're pushing for (including Georgia Department of Transportation) is a streetcar line that will go up and down Peachtree Street. Isn't this what the north-south line of MARTA does? Why aren't they fighting for something that covers territory not covered by MARTA? Like the BeltLine? I'm happy that the transportation organization is fighting for something, but I'm discouraged that they're fighting for the silliest proposal.

 

The other proposal? The famed toll tunnel connecting Ga. 400 to I-675 -- going under Virginia-Highland, East Atlanta and every other neighborhood east of Midtown and Downtown -- is on the top of GDOT's toll projects to pitch to private investors, Creative Loafing noted. Isn't this just a revamped (now subterranean, but still neighborhood-destroying) version of the I-485 proposal that Va-Hi annihilated back in the '70s? Why don't we just turn the entire city into a series of highways and tunnels? Who needs an actual city?

 

What do you think? Would the proposed streetcar line benefit people more than MARTA? Is I-485 2.0 less likely to destroy the eastern bloc of Atlanta? Or have we decided that we no longer need the eastern bloc? Do you prefer either of these plans to the BeltLine? And why have neighborhood groups yet to be given opportunities to comment on either proposal (as they were with the BeltLine)? There's a serious problem if the current residents in the eastern bloc would support the tunnel and not the BeltLine. What would their geographic ancestors say?

House Speaker Glenn Richardson has resigned after it finally became public that not only did he sleep around but he slept around with lobbyists and then supported their causes. For Atlantans, this development has provided little more than blog fodder and a quick way to undermine the GOP's attempt at a moral platform. However, all that may change come Jan. 12, when the 2010 Georgia General Assembly goes into session. The public shaming has left the Republican Party severely wounded, and it will probably spend the majority of the coming months fixing its image. Unfortunately for Atlantans and Georgians in general, the Republicans are the majority party in the General Assembly, so as long as they're focusing on their image instead of politics as usual, nothing is going to be accomplished, Blog for Democracy predicted. And since sessions only last 40 days, that means that this entire session will probably be for naught, wasted on re-imaging.

Here's a little list of issues the General Assembly could have tackled this session:
1. Economy: Unemployment in the state is at 10.2 percent.
2. Housing: The market continues to fall.
3. Education: The state's always towards the bottom or national rankings for education.

 

What do you think about this mess? What issues did we forget to include that are important to you? How do you anticipate that all of this will affect you.

Nightlife in the city has faced some recent hardships, beginning in 2003. Former Mayor Sam Massell and his Buckhead Coalition succeeded in pulling back Fulton's closing time from 4 to 2:30 a.m. The earlier closing time may have made the county safer and quieter, but it pushed partiers to DeKalb and led to fifty or so clubs across the county to put up permanent closed signs when they couldn't cope with lost revenues. Creative Loafing argues that this has gutted the international city's nightlife scene and turned it into a bit of a joke.

 

Last month, Councilman Kwanza Hall proposed reversing the 2003 decision and letting the city's bars stay open until 4 a.m. He argues that letting the bars stay open longer will increase city revenue in a time when the city desperately needs it. Check out Creative Loafing's article for the specifics of his proposal, plus other proposals on the matter. Sam Massell and his antiquated cohort outright dismissed such proposals on the ground of historical precedence. Midtown Neighbors' Association, on the other hand, voted to not oppose Hall's proposal. Creative Loafing views the proposal as a shot in the arm needed to reawaken our "moribund" scene. And so this nightlife renewal projects begins, slowly but hopefully surely.

 

Now, I'm not a Creative cynic -- I may hate that the Buckhead bars closed, I may think that there's a dearth of nightlife offerings in Midtown, and I may wish that I could stay out an extra hour or two at my favorite spots, but the nightlife scene in Atlanta is far from dead. I understand the political reasons behind Creative Loafing's laments: If you don't complain that nightlife is weakly crawling along, then your argument for increasing the number and hours of bars loses its urgency if not its gravity. And there's something to be said for the importance of riling people up, of shocking them out of their complacency and into political action. And I do agree that we need more bars (in the right areas, not just scatologically sprinkled across the city) with longer hours. But we're only a joke if you're the one laughing.

 

Hopefully, the coming years will demonstrate that neighborhood organizations have realized that the benefits of culturally shooting themselves in the foot are short-term, or else Creative Loafing's prognosis may come true and we might actually become a laughingstock. I have to agree with commenter "neoturner's" remark on Creative's Hall article: "At some point residents have to start accepting some responsibility for choosing to live in an urban area."

There are a variety of Atlanta organizations that affect our day-to-day activities in a fundamental way. At Lens, we think it's worthwhile to learn as much as we can about these organizations, so we've initiated a series in which we'll ask organizations to address some of our most pressing concerns.

Today we tackled the Atlanta Regional Commission, the organization in charge of studying the region's transportation patterns, along with other regional issues. Here are their answers:

1.       How much is the metropolitan area slated to grow in the next few or so years? How do you plan to adapt your transportation model to that growth?
By 2015, the 20-county metro area is forecast to grow from our present 5 million people to almost 6 million. You can look at a report that ARC distributed this summer forecasting the metro area population growth all the way to 2040 in terms of employment, age, ethnicity and occupation. This information was developed because ARC is presently in the planning stages to do just what you are asking: determining how transportation and land use resources will meet the challenges of economic viability, changing demographics and resource management. You can keep track of this planning effort on the 2040 site (PLAN 2040).

2.       Are there any plans to extend MARTA to the other suburbs?  Are there any public transportation options in the works for the outer suburbs (particularly now that one such public transportation option might be discontinued: Clayton County’s)?
You might not hear about this very much in the daily news but a lot is going on behind the scenes between public transportation providers, including MARTA, doing just what you are inquiring about. A regional transit connectivity and accessibility solution has been adopted called “Concept 3.” Check out their website to get an idea about the potential for a region-wide transit system.  At the present time, county governments, transit providers and planning agencies are meeting to put together a framework detailing how a regional system would work and how it would be paid for. But our first priority really needs to be maintaining the current system. Funding remains a big issue -- where will it come from, how much and for how long. As you say, Clayton County is proposing to end their services. MARTA, Gwinnett County and GRTA Xpress are all experiencing budget issues. Everyone recognizes the tremendous asset the regional transit system is to the metro area, and much work is being done to secure additional funding to maintain and expand the system. But we can always use your help, telling your local and state elected officials that this is important to you goes a long way toward achieving the goal of expanded transit.

3.       Your annual report emphasizes that Atlanta needs to move forward with fixing its water and transportation issues in a sustainable manner.  What sustainable options are you considering for these matters?
ARC just finished a sustainability report:  Sustainability: A Vision for Metro Atlanta. It details out the needs and possibilities for the metro area. Input into this report was taken from a visioning activity ARC has been involved in for the past two years: Atlanta Fifty Forward. ARC engaged both Atlantans and outside experts to discuss our common future through many lenses. Information from this exercise is being fed into the transportation and land development plan looking out to the year 2040. It is obvious that we need to look at the future as a “triple bottom line” -- that will focus on social, economic and environmental solutions and how they will work together.  Every discussion that we are having these days includes sustainability as a necessity.

4.       Your 2008 annual report emphasizes the importance of improving the economy. Will adjustments to the metropolitan area’s transportation system help to improve the economy?
As ARC develops the next long-range (to the year 2040) transportation and land development plan (PLAN 2040), the economy is front and center. We’ve been talking with leaders from around the 20-county metro area and many groups of people having a lot of different viewpoints, but the economy is on everyone’s mind. As we look into the future, we need to see our efforts connecting across many factors that make up our communities. We have been using the term “triple bottom line” when referring to our work –- looking at social, environmental and economic factors. All of these must be considered when thinking of land development policies going forward and how transportation assets can contribute and not hinder our aspirations. We have put on our PLAN 2040 website some information about those factors that you might want to check out. This information was presented to our Board very recently. Pretty soon, we will be releasing even more information about how our transportation system is being considered in terms of economic goals.

5.       How can people participate?  How can they contribute ideas to ARC?
We really want to engage residents in the metro Atlanta area and ask them to think about their future and the challenges we all face to realize our individual and collective community goals. We have been soliciting ideas for the past year to get a base line of information on the metro area’s assets and challenges. We will be continually posting information to the PLAN 2040 website for the next year and a half as we develop this long range transportation and land development plan. During that time, people can click in and let us know their thoughts as they review our materials. We are putting together a very ambitious plan of engagement during 2010 which is the most critical time to get feedback from residents. We will be available as speakers at organization events -- so contact us to schedule at plan2040@atlantaregional.com or 404-463-3272. In addition, we will be holding a lot of small group meetings to discuss what we are doing and seeking advice from many different points of view. Reports from these meetings will be posted. Contribution of ideas can always be made through our website surveys and our email address. We welcome these contributions very much –- hearing from broad cross-sections of metro area residents is crucial to our work here.

What did you think of ARC responses? What else would you like to know about them? What other organizations would you like us to interrogate?

For the past five years, I lived in the North. Where snow sticks, and there's lots of it, and it starts to carpet the land in October. Not so in the South. Having been born and raised in Atlanta, broadly defined, the only time that I can recall snow actually being a major issue was the Great Blizzard of '93. When we got four inches. And the entire city shut down for three days. But in the past few years, it seems that in spite of global warming, we can't go a winter without a flurry or two, which usually just means a mild taste of winter wonderland, but can also cause great inconvenience. Seems like we're about to hit that point this Saturday, as the AJC reports.

 

The problem with snow -- or any cold-weather malady, such as black ice -- below the Mason-Dixon line is that we aren't prepared for it. We don't have legions of plows in the event that snow actually sticks or piles up, and snow happens so infrequently here that drivers aren't used to dealing with it when it does fall. Fellow Lens member Jayne posted some great tips on what to eat in order to prepare your body for winter's hardships, but what do you do to prepare your car (or psych yourself up) to deal with the winter weather? We can't presciently salt the roads we'll drive ourselves, and snow tires are a bit excessive.

 

Here are some tips for driving in the-giving-season's inclement weather, culled from The Weather Channel:

1. Slow down. And leave lots of space between your car and others'. Even when dealing with 75N during afternoon rush hour.

2. If you do find yourself too close to traffic, don't slam on the brakes, which are probably a bit under-the-weather. Gently press them to gradually slow down. Anything too extreme when dealing with snow or ice can cause your car to spin out of control. This is particulalry useful information when it comes to Atlanta's winding roads, which usually involve at least one sudden split or turn along a commute. Be careful when dealing with Peachtree.

3. Avoid using cruise control. Even if you're from Dahlonega or  your cruise control is used to more mountainous regions, it's never a safe bet when Highland ices over.

 

What are some of the driving tips that you've accumulated over the years? What are some of the worst patches in the city area for drivers to look out for? And does it ultimately come down to driving safely? Or is there something more? Does the city need to implement institutional changes to adapt to something that could have serious effects on the populace, particularly when that populace is so car-dependent? Or would that be a waste of money? Is this yet another signt that people should embrace public transportation, and in turn, that the city should increase funding to such projects? Or have you never actually gotten into a wreck because of cold-weather burdens?

Yesterday's runoff election votes have been talied, and according to the AJC, Kasim Reed beat Mary Norwood, taking 51% of the vote. However, Norwood has refused to concede defeat and called for a recount, though Reed has already declared himself the victor (thus, the question mark in the title, to avoid a "Dewey Beats Truman"-esque fiasco). And Norwood's move isn't in the slightest bit unreasonable. Reed has about a 750 vote lead on Norwood, and there are still 700 provisional ballots yet to enter the tally. It will probably take a week for things to be finalized, if a recount is taken.

 

Reed has already begun to outline his plans for the city. In an interview on WSB-TV this morning, he said that one of his chief concerns was getting a new police chief to help alleviate the city's rising crime problem. Norwood has said that whether or not she wins the mayoral office, she still intends to be involved with Atlanta politics, and both parties have expressed interest in Norwood working with Reed to some extent, if the final tally leaves her losing.

 

Perhaps one of the most important things to take away from this entire runoff election is not so much the result so much as the process. This election marked the first time in eight years that the city would have a new mayor, and the first time that it would vote for a new mayor without Maynard Jackson, who died in 2003 and whose rubberstamp usually ensured victory for mayoral candidates, to guide the vote in any way. It was also, most importantly, the first time since Jackson took office in 1974 that it seemed like a white mayor would be elected in Atlanta. Fittingly, the AJC noted that a unusually large number of voters turned out to vote in this runoff.

 

But how do Atlanta's citizens feel about this (temporary?) resolution? Such a close call indicates that nearly half of the city isn't happy, and such a high turnout indicates that those who aren't happy are very passionately unhappy. The AJC's Jim Galloway, who has tacitly supported Reed in his coverage, applauds Reed's (for-now) win because it will bring change, but not unqualified revolution. Commenters on his blog had different responses (though some openly argued that Reed was more qualified than Norwood), including many criticisms that Reed represents more of the same and another victory for the Jackson political machine (and a lot of paranoia that someone tampered with the votes), and more than a few incredibly racist, "Birth of a Nation"-caliber remarks. Mel on Blog for Democracy felt completely spent after the election. Ken Edelstein on Atlanta Unsheltered offered some ballanced coverage, weighing the pros and cons of each candidates and what the election ultimately means, not just racially (don't be fooled by the poor title) but for the city in general, in a fairly even manner. Creative Loafing uncreatively argues that it's all about race. What do you think? And now that the election is (nearly) behind us, maybe we can begin to focus on more important things than campaigns and pesky pieces of personal politics ... like the issues.

The flood has affected more than the crops in our organic food realm. September's showers destroyed most of the Atlanta area's farm land, and though that destruction was devastating to local farmers, it also had a negative impact on some of our big businesses with local plants. The Kellogg Company's local Bucknell Drive facility halted their production of Eggos as a precaution during the flood. That coupled with equipment problems at the brand's Tennessee plant has led to a decrease in the national supply of the frozen waffles, the AJC reported.

 

It's weird to think that little more than a year ago we were in a very serious drought. The flood was enough of a shock, and it's proving to be the shock that keeps on giving. However, thanks to the draught, it really isn't that shocking that a (comparatively) minor flood has had such far-ranging effects. We weren't prepared in the slightest for such a natural dissaster. Thanks to the development with Eggo, the effect has gone national. As a result, I can understand why the waffles are taking center stage. But the real tragedy is the local farms that were actually destroyed, not the national plants that had to temporarily shut down. I understand that there's only so much coverage that we can give to such farms, but media outlets (as flagging as they are) need to realize that these are the stories that matter, not spilled Eggos. Until the farms reopen and reattain their former levels of production, they will have a story. The entire process surrounding the local producers of fresh foods continues to be an engaging narrative. Far more complex than frozen foods.

The AJC just broke the news that Sony Ericsson is going to move its North American headquarters from North Carolina to Atlanta. What does that mean for the city at large? As of 2009, the company ranks fourth in the world when it comes to the market share of mobile devices, behind Nokia, Samsung and LG. However, it doesn't seem like the move will lead to job growth. It seems that the company is merely closing its other facilities in the U.S., making it operations in Atlanta its default headquarters for the area at large. The company has yet to publicly release information about the matter. From that, I would glean that there will be some job growth, but that it will be minimal. However, it's always a boon for the city when a company establishes Atlanta as its headquarters. It gives the city a bit more prestige, and presumably companies headquartered here will be more prone to invest in the city. Hopefully, even though jobs probably won't grow siginficantly, the move will lead to some increased investment in the area. This is a positive step, given that many other corporations have lately been picking up and heading out.