Friday, February 3, 2012
News Beatys, Task Force is out of Peachtree-Pine in 10 days — UPDATE
Posted by Scott Henry on Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 6:56 PM
"I'm going to enter an order to close the shelter in 10 days," Judge Craig Schwall told a packed courtroom just minutes ago, after two hours of heated arguments by attorneys. Then he called a 20-minute recess and walked back into his chambers even as Task Force lawyer Steve Hall was still calling out his objections.
After years of legal battles and name-calling in the press between the Beatys and seemingly every other organization in town, the judge finally appears unconvinced that the Task Force really has the best interests of the homeless at heart.
"We're the ultimate backstop to saving people's lives," Hall said around the two-hour mark, when he was interrupted by the judge.
"Did you save the lives of Occupy Atlanta when you invited them in? Did you save lives when you took $50,000 salaries?" Schwall asked, referring to the Beatys' paychecks from what appears to be a nonprofit shell corporation bankrolled by the shelter's biggest financial supporter, Coke heir B. Wardlaw (an interesting personality in his own right).
UPDATE — The money quotes are coming fast and furious now that court is back in session:
Judge Schwall: "This is the most acrimonious litigation I've ever seen in my career … and it indicates to me that (the Beatys) can't get along with anybody."
Um, I think he might be on to something there.
Judge Schwall: "I'm not convinced that (the Beatys) have the best interests of the homeless in this city at heart. It's more about power, money, control, revenge and anger."
Getting warmer.
The judge is now telling the Task Force attorney that he'd like the Beatys to step aside and let the United Way run the shelter.
"Let me ask you," Schwall is saying. "If the United Way has a problem with your client, have you ever thought there might be a problem with them?"
Whoops, here's the final word from the judge: "I'm going to order the Beatys out of the property by noon, Feb. 15, and I'm ordering the shelter be closed by Aug. 31, 2012."
And he's out the door again!
Stupid / Crime Familiar story, new headline: Local woman gets what she deserves
Posted by Gwynedd Stuart on Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 1:04 PM
Today's headline via WSBTV: "Woman duped into buying fake iPads, laptop"
Nope. Uh uh. I'm sorry, but here's how this headline should read: "Woman gets what she deserves for being an idiot and also being OK with buying potentially stolen merchandise from criminals"
The all too familiar story:
[A] Lilburn woman, who requested anonymity, said it happened two weeks ago when she was pumping gas at a Quicktrip on Oakbrook Parkway. She said two men approached her car waving real iPads and laptops and promised a big discount. She ended up buying fake iPads from the back of their car.
...
Gwinnett police showed [reporter Kerry] Kavanaugh the purchases, which were wrapped in bubble tape. What she thought were iPads were pieces of glass lined with black duct tape. The fake laptop was a three-ring binder stuffed with paper.
You know when people get robbed whilst attempting to buy drugs and then they report the theft to police? Then we laugh — because, really, how stupid or drug addled does a person have to be to tip the cops off to their own criminal behavior — and the druggie goes to jail?
Now think about it: Isn't this story pretty similar?
You know why people break into homes to steal TVs, DVD players and laptops? Because there's a market for them, a market that consists of people who don't give a shit where the goods they buy on street corners and in parking lots come from or how they were acquired, as long as they're cheap. Anonymous iPad purchaser said the men told her they were Best Buy employees selling "overstock" items. And this is a thing that seemed legit to her. Translation: I really didn't care where the stuff was coming from, I just really wanted some high-dollar electronics I couldn't otherwise afford.
So, poor, poor Lilburn lady got ripped off. Good. Bet she won't buy electronics — genuine or not — from shitheads in a parking lot ever again.
Haters / Media AJC seemingly out to derail Atlanta Streetcar
Posted by Scott Henry on Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 12:39 PM
A little more than a year ago, longtime business journalist Maria Saporta took her former employer to task in a blog post titled, "Gift of building does not absolve the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s downtown departure." Saporta zeroed in on the paper's treatment of the news that Atlanta had won a federal grant to help build a proposed downtown streetcar to boost the long-neglected Auburn Avenue corridor:
Look at how the AJC has covered Atlanta’s significant win of $47.6 million for a $72 million streetcar project to connect Centennial Olympic Park with the King District.“Pricey streetcar won’t ease traffic” — the 1A Sunday headline blared. One had to read way down in the story to find out that the project was not aimed at easing traffic. It is part of a growing understanding that transportation and land-use investments must be linked to create communities that are not dependent on automobiles.
Saporta, who toiled at the paper for 27 years, cited the article as emblematic of the AJC's new, anti-boosterism stance where Atlanta is concerned (which I also detail at length in this cover story).
That's a long-winded set-up for the paper's latest — and, I think, more egregious — slap at the streetcar project. After U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood came to town to help break ground for the project on Wednesday, the AJC ran a story titled, "Streetcar work begins, total cost rises."
Slightly back-handed, perhaps, but factual — even though the headline arguably gives the impression that the extra cost will be borne by taxpayers. It will actually be covered largely by private-sector grants, including more than $18 million pledged by the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District.
But the real problem with the story is in its prominent references to project critics, as in, "Critics, however, say the project will not draw enough traffic to justify its cost."
So, who are these critics? Well, if you read all the way to the last few paragraphs, you'll find these gems:
“I don’t believe it’s going to improve mass transit,” said Benita Dodd, vice president at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation and a consistent critic of the project. “If anything, it’s diverting needed funds from transit that is needed. It’s more a tourist attraction than a transit solution.”Randal O’Toole, a senior fellow with the Washington-based, libertarian-leaning Cato Institute and a critic of streetcar projects, said cities routinely overestimate the economic development impact. He said “all kinds of cities are building streetcars because the [federal] money is there and if you don’t do it, someone else will.”
You've gotta be kidding. For local criticism, you ask the GPPF, a conservative think-tank that's reliably pro-road and anti-transit? That's like calling the Grand Wizard to get a quote about the MLK Day parade. And then you ring up the anti-government Cato Institute to solicit a disparaging comment about streetcar projects in general?
News First Slice 2/3/12: What would Phil Gingrey do?
Posted by Thomas Wheatley on Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 8:30 AM
- Joeff Davis/CL File
- Cycling in Atlanta increased between 2000 and 2009 by 398 percent
1. Congressman Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., walked out on yesterday's National Prayer Breakfast during President Barack Obama's speech because the commander-in-chief apparently went a bit too heavy on the politics. There's no evidence that Gingrey then jumped on Twitter to make ridiculous comments a la Paul Broun, his fellow Georgia congressman who called the president a socialist during last year's State of the Union. (To be fair, though, I probably would've walked out of this 2006 prayer breakfast which featured Bono.)
2. Cycling in Atlanta increased between 2000 and 2009 by 398 percent. That's great news. But it should be noted that the reason the percentage is so high is because, well, the base number is so low.
3. ICYMI: My colleague Scott Henry reports that the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, the controversial nonprofit which was scheduled to appear in a Fulton County court today, might learn if it could be booted from the massive shelter it operates at the intersection of Peachtree and Pine streets.
Events 5 things today: Precious Things, Ani Difranco
Posted by Wyatt Williams on Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 7:00 AM
- COURTESY JENNIFER SCHWARTZ
- Jefferson Hayman
1. Jennifer Schwartz exhibits Precious Things
2. Ani Difranco plays Variety
3. Rickolus plays Masquerade
4. Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Plaza
5. DILLIGAF, Swervocity, and CMFTBLVN at the Music Room
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Courts Task Force for Homeless court hearing on Friday…finally
Posted by Scott Henry on Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 6:27 PM
And yet I was told just minutes ago by one of the attorneys involved that the long-anticipated and, one can only hope, final, hearing will, indeed, take place tomorrow at 2 p.m. in Fulton County Superior Court. Get there early, as the room may already be Occupied.
For those who haven't followed the tortuous progress of this case, here's the briefest of recaps: In May 2010, a newly formed nonprofit called Ichthus Community Trust bought two outstanding liens totaling $900,000 for the ginormous shelter at the corner of Peachtree and Pine. Ichthus then foreclosed, prompting a lawsuit by the Metro Task Force for the Homeless, which has operated the shelter since 1997. The suit also named Central Atlanta Progress as a defendant, claiming it had conspired with city officials and other groups to illegally wrest the property away from the Task Force. The Task Force also filed suit in federal court against the city, making many of the same claims, but the case was tossed out this past September.
Even though — or more likely because — things don't seem to be going their way, the Task Force lawyers have spent the past month deposing everybody in sight, including representatives of Ichthus, the city-owned Gateway homeless center, the United Way Regional Commission on Homelessness and scads of others. We'll see how that works out for them.
Oh, did I mention that the Task Force owes about $300,000 in overdue water bills or that it hasn't paid rent to its new landlords? I've also been told it hasn't paid its gas or electric bills in recent months, but I guess such worldly concerns don't matter when you've got God on your side.
Bummer / Wonk Metro Atlanta is still a vast sea of foreclosures where real estate investors are looking at what could be former brothels
Posted by Thomas Wheatley on Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 3:16 PM
If you didn't read yesterday's excellent New York Times piece that says metro Atlanta is home to the world's hottest royal since Prince Albert trails the rest of the country when it comes to home sale prices, we strongly urge you to do so. And yes, you read that second paragraph right. We're actually faring worse than Phoenix and Miami.
Motoko Rich's piece is filled with delicious, depressing data, but the following lines truly caught my eye (I've been spending the last few weeks researching the topic of growth — or the lack thereof — in Southeastern cities and metro regions):
Atlanta has suffered greatly from a contracting pool of home buyers. The number of people moving from within the United States to [metro] Atlanta peaked at 100,000 in 2006 and plunged to just 17,000 by 2009, the latest census figures available.“Most of the housing activity that we experienced in the past 10 years was people moving to Atlanta from other markets,” said Domonic Purviance, real estate market analyst for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
“If you lose 80,000 people a year coming to your market,” Mr. Purviance added, “that’s the whole issue.”
And nearly a quarter of job losses between February 2008 and August 2011 were in the construction and real estate sectors. I know it's been said time and time again, but damn, what geniuses decided in the 2000s that growth for growth's sake should be metro Atlanta's main industry?
____
* Why use "brothel" in the title? Read the NYT story, my friends!
Busted You won't believe it, but the Rabbi who anointed Eddie Long is full of it
Posted by Gwynedd Stuart on Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 2:25 PM
- YouTube
- What? You've never heard of Birkendahl?
The video — which we posted yesterday evening — is good for a laugh. The ceremony itself is inherently ridiculous. On top of that, Messer repeatedly botches the pronunciation of Birkenau (maybe Buchenwald?), creating a word that sounds something like "Birkendahl." He misquotes scripture. He attempts to turn the Torah into that awful Jim Carrey movie "The Number 23." As someone on a religious forum put it, "Ralph Messer's no more a rabbi than my mom's a cat."
Worth considering, however, are the greater implications of a guy running around, claiming to be a Jewish holy man, and completely misrepresenting Judaism in front of thousands of people.
In a post on The Feminist Wire, religious scholar Wil Gafney was compelled to refute the "specious claims" made by Messer during the bogus ritual. It's worth reading in its entirety, but her are some highlights ...
Regarding Messer calling the Torah cover "a foreskin," which Gafney says was not only gross, but also inaccurate:
The Torah cover is not a “foreskin.” Hyper-masculine, hyper-sexualization of the Torah reduces the holy Torah to a problematic phallic symbol — God’s? or Long’s? — and categorizes the most destructive behaviors associated with New Birth ministries in recent years. Grammatically and symbolically, the Torah is feminine in Hebrew and is personified as “She,” as in “She is a Tree of Life,” in Prov. 3:18.
On the average Jew's relationship to Torah scrolls:
The claim that 90% of the Jews in the world have “never seen, approached or touched” Torah scrolls is utterly without foundation. The Torah is taken out of the Ark during Shabbat and other services; it is processed through the assembly twice where people reverence it (Her!) by touching and kissing it/Her.
On Messer's attempts at number symbology:
The frequent references to significant numbers may be an attempt to mimic the Jewish mystical tradition of Gematria that elicits meanings from numbers and their contexts. However, the speaker is devising his own system without reference to any of the classical texts in Judaism, frequently by simple free- and word-association.
Most important:
His address of Eddie Long as a biblical or Israelite king is without foundation in the scriptures or in reality.
Neighborhoods Canada goose don't give a shit
Posted by Gwynedd Stuart on Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 11:39 AM
- WIKIMEDIA
- Dicks.
Fed up with the carpetbagging sons of bitches, Inman Parkers took pre-migration precautions this year by launching a floating, plastic alligator head — which they're calling their "Gator Aid" — into the pond in Springvale Park on Sunday. It's like a scarecrow. But buoyant and with terrifying glowing eyes.
Like a scarecrow, though, it also doesn't work.
A resident broke it to neighbors on the Inman Park listserv this morning that she's already spotted two Canada geese in the pond:
I was right about when the Canada Geese return on their way north........this am they flew over the pond and two are now in the pond and Gator Aid HAS NOT scared them off. The War Birds don't give a sh...t. We have to think of something fast!!!! What's with Gator Aid anyhow???
Thomas Wheatley and I had a good natured laugh about the the Gator Aid's failure this morning (we certainly don't wish Lucy any malice). A fun hypothetical Thomas came up with: "Watch it attract dragons. Or carnivorous condors that know how to pick locks."
News First Slice 2/2/12: General's shadow not visible
Posted by Scott Henry on Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 9:08 AM
1. Spring is ready to get sprung, according to Gen. Beauregard Lee, groundhog-in-residence at Gwinnett's Yellow River Game Ranch. After failing to see his shadow, the rodent was taken into custody for impersonating an officer.
2. The Swedish Supreme Court fires a shot across the bow for file-sharing sites by upholding convictions of the four founders of Pirate Bay, one of the most notorious BitTorrent sites. Two of the file piraters will spend a year in prison; they owe a combined $6.8 million in fines.
3. Construction begins downtown on the Atlanta Streetcar project after a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday at which this man attempted to become an Internet meme.
