If you have ever been to a “normal” city council or county commission meeting, you know that they generally like to ask the representative of the affected district before they vote on a matter affecting that district. The GDOT board appears to be working the opposite way, from reading this editorial in the Macon Telegraph. Apparently GDOT wants to build a giant interchange resembling Spaghetti Junction at I-75 and I-16.

The neighbors clearly don’t want this interchange, and it appears the GDOT board representative for the area doesn’t want it either. But at GDOT, they think they know better what we want than we do. “You don’t want that in your district? Fine. We’ll put it there anyway,” they say.

How do we stop this madness?

My uncle and his family were lucky enough to find a hotel in Houston on Sunday before they evacuated that morning at 5:00. No one is sure when they will be able to return home to survey the damage to their house, but there’s little doubt that the entire ground floor was flooded in, at the very least.

According to a recent study published by today’s AJC, Atlanta residents contribute $289 per household per year in oil revenues to the middle east. Dan McLagan, spokesman for Sonny Perdue responded:

The world is filled with loony lefty organizations that want everybody to live in Tokyo-style high-rises and walk to work in their Birkenstocks.

His statement is a great demonstration of the extent to which our governor is out of touch with Georgia residents. It’s easier for his staff to act like juvenile politicians than deal with real issues and needs like they were hired to do.

You’re at the top of the company. You’re out there, conducting interviews with the media, traversing the country in your corporate jet. You have the most high-profile job.

But according to Microsoft Word, it’s really the high-profileest job:

Get it? That’s high-profile, high-profiler, and high-profileest.

God bless the Blog for Democracy folks for trying. But every once in a while, they come up with a post worth reading. The picture posted there was found at the Capitol Hill Blue site, in a post describing a frigid reception to Bush’s appearance at a V.F.W. event.

Responding once again, this time to an op-ed in tomorrow’s paper. An old man and a hired political hack wrote this op-ed in favor of I-3 and I-14:

I-3 is not designed to solve Atlanta’s traffic problems, but to bring equal interstate access to the rest of the state and region. That it eases those traffic and environmental problems is simply an added benefit.

…

In the absence of a new interstate alternative in the mountains, there will be ever-increasing damage and totally uncontrolled development on U.S. Highways 19, 23, 76, 129 and 441 because of a lack of access protections afforded by an interstate.

…

The young people of those communities deserve to have the option of working at good jobs in North Georgia, with access to colleges and universities via the safest highways possible — which are interstates, not strip-mall highways of death.

Clearly, these folks are living in pre-interstate days, though I can’t help but be amused by the phrase, “strip-mall highways of death.” From here on, I’ll refer to them as SHOD.

I wrote an LTE, but lost it — even the back button couldn’t save my LTE from destruction in the un-cache.
In any case, something about the attitude in this op-ed demostrates a lack of understanding among its authors, who appear to believe that Atlanta’s growth was planned and well-controlled. Folks, this place is Georgia’s Mecca of unplanned, uncontrolled growth. If you think the potential development along your U.S. highways is poor, I can only think of how much worse off you would be if you had interstates, instead. With interstates, SHOD developers become kids in candy stores. If you want an example of this, just look at Atlanta.

I think the young people of North Georgia deserve something better than what we got. North Georgia may not be Atlanta’s playground, as you say, but North Georgia depends on our tourist dollars. If you don’t want ‘em, go ahead and build your interstates and bulldoze your way through those mountains your children will miss.

Back here in Atlanta, we got an over-built, over-subsidized mess. Allen Muldrew and Jerry Kendall, meanwhile, seem to experience the “grass is greener on the other side” syndrome.

This morning, when I checked my work email, I noticed a curious message. This message was clearly spam, given its subject line, “Your order #0547,” but something within me drove me to open this message.

Thankfully, I’m not using Outlook, and the email client is set to not display images.

But the message was hillarious simply because it was so random.

Geochemists are experts on hermits. Oil company interviewers are ready to begin dating the ghouls. Charlatans want their children to become mobile home owners.

Body Wrap at Home - (url removed)

Freaks are seen with cattle mutilators. Preachers rid the world of male chauvinist pigs. Golfers seldom annoy sunbathers!

Lose 6-20 inches in one hour - (url removed)

Librarians are the larvae of Amoco employees. Did you know that con artists usually end up marrying federal agents? Women faint at the sight of New Yorkers.

Soothing formula - contours, cleanses and rejuvenates.

City dwellers secretly admire bookworms. Weasels divorce North Americans. Did you know that con artists usually end up marrying federal agents?

Are you ready to totally flip out? I was watching Meet the Press yesterday morning, and this is what I heard from Reuel Marc Gerecht (emphasis mine):

I mean, one hopes that the Iraqis protect women’s social rights as much as possible. It certainly seems clear that in protecting the political rights, there’s no discussion of women not having the right to vote. I think it’s important to remember that in the year 1900, for example, in the United States, it was a democracy then. In 1900, women did not have the right to vote. If Iraqis could develop a democracy that resembled America in the 1900s, I think we’d all be thrilled. I mean, women’s social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy.

This guy was introduced on NBC as a former CIA guy, but they didn’t mention he’s also part of the überscary Project for the New American Century.

The context of the quote seems innocent enough — moving from a dictatorship to a democracy is generally a good thing. But then the context is followed by a patently hateful message.

The rights of women and minorities in a modern democracy — that the majority may not infringe on inalienable rights of the minority — are inseparable to our concept of democracy. The Republican party’s powerful and extreme right wing have done more than merely attack feminism. They have clearly gained enough power to try to make it seem okay to impose their concept of democracy on middle east nations.

Their concept of democracy is not the same as my own. Their concept of democracy does not encompass inalienable rights. Their concept of democracy does not acknowledge the importance of transparency, accountability, education, and the free flow of information to a well-functioning democracy — not to mention, a prosperous economy.

Gas prices too hot for you? What can you do?

I originally posted this in a comment elsewhere, but thought it would be good to post this here, and announce my little bumper stickers.

Here are a couple of things to talk to your elected officials about:

1. Support mass transit. Give more commuters more options. If that means stop building roads, so be it. With every new road and road improvement, there are new incentives to keep driving and disincentives to use transit. That means, there are more incentives to raise demand for gasoline, which takes us right back into the cycle we’re in.
2. Support transportation-land use coordination. It doesn’t make sense to build mass transit stations in low-density areas where folks probably don’t want it so much, anyway. It makes more sense to bring higher-density developments to mass transit stations so that more choices exist — not to mention, we could better utilize what we already have. As taxpayers, we (presumably) like efficiency.

And a few things you can do today:

1. Use mass transit, even if it means a longer commute. Just try it out, and try to stick to it. The difference between traffic delays and transit delays is that with transit delays, you know who to blame. That makes it easier to go negative, so don’t buy into that temptation.
2. When you go shopping, shop in Fulton and DeKalb, where sales taxes help fund MARTA.
3. Challenge yourself to see where you can walk from where you live. You may be surprised to learn what is close enough to walk to, and you’ve saved yourself a car trip.
4. Check out the Clean Air Campaign site for more ideas.
5. Depending on the county you live in, buy these bumper stickers:

   • Bring MARTA to Cobb
   • Bring MARTA to Gwinnett
   • Bring MARTA to Clayton

Begin forwarded message:

From: “Julie Ralston” <JRalston@atlantaregional.com>
Date: August 18, 2005 6:31:27 PM EDT
To: <jmellott@ajc.com>, <jwallace@ajc.com>, <broughton@ajc.com>, <hklibinoff@ajc.com>
Cc: “ARCBoard” <arcboard@atlantaregional.com>, <mturner@ajc.com>, “Janet Frankston” <jfrankston@ajc.com>, “Julie Hairston” <jhairston@ajc.com>
Subject: Letter Regarding Horizon Section

Atlanta Regional Commission
40 Courtland Street, NE
Atlanta, Georgia 30303

August 18, 2005

Mr. John Mellott
Publisher
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
P. O. Box 4289
Atlanta, GA 30302

Dear Mr. Mellott:

Growth in metro Atlanta has been the big story for at least a decade. With the region expected to add 2.3 million more people by 2030, it will continue to be a major story.

Where will new residents live? How will they move about? Will we have enough water to meet the needs of citizens and yet protect the health of rivers, streams and lakes? How will the tripling of the over 60 population affect community design and the types of housing we build?

These are the kinds of stories that the Horizon section is uniquely positioned to address. That is why we are disturbed to learn that you plan to discontinue the section in mid-September.

Horizon plays a critical role in raising awareness of the challenges we face in the region. It creates context for this kind of coverage that would not be possible if it were scattered throughout the newspaper. By concentrating these stories in one section, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution helps readers connect the dots and see the links between land use, transportation, water resources and growth.

Great newspapers are voices for change in their communities. The reporting in the Horizon section has contributed to the many positive changes that have begun to happen in metro Atlanta. Our air quality is improving. New developments are enabling people to walk to work and shopping. Exciting new projects like the Belt Line are on the drawing board.

But challenges remain and new ones will surely arise. Readers have come to depend on Horizon to stay informed about the challenges and opportunities that growth presents. While the Horizon section may not claim the highest readership, we believe it has a loyal following of the key business, elected and civic leaders who work daily to make a difference in this region. Horizon is helping them, and citizens at large, better focus their efforts to achieve regional progress.

I respectfully urge you to reconsider your decision and keep the Horizon section.

Sincerely,

Charles Krautler

Director

c: ARC Board