In one for the ages, Georgia's Gov. Nathan Deal tapped a long-time Republican operative to head up the state's important transportation department. The transportation planning director basically picks the projects that get funded from large parts of the state’s $2 billion gas tax budget! What follows are excerpts from the AJC.com article:
The Senate Transportation Committee on Monday voted swiftly and unanimously to confirm Toby Carr as the state’s transportation planning director, the semi-final step in his appointment.
Gov. Nathan Deal nominated Carr, a political aide, to replace Todd Long, a career transportation planner and engineer.
The planning director has perhaps the strongest single hand in picking which projects get funded from large parts of the state’s $2 billion gas tax budget.
Carr is former director of the Georgia Republican Party, led Deal’s gubernatorial transition committee, and recently has been Deal’s transportation policy advisor. He’s been acting as planning director pending his confirmation.
But his background raised no questions for the committee members. After Carr delivered his opening remarks to them Monday and braced for questions, the senators, both Republicans and Democrats, voted to confirm him without asking a single one.
In interviews, some said they had worked with Carr when he was Deal’s liaison to the General Assembly, so they were not concerned about his education, experience or the approach he would take for the transportation planning position.
“We’ve had great experience with him already,” said Sen. Bill Jackson, R-Appling, a member of the committee. “You know you have faith somewhere. You have to have faith in the people that you’ve known. You could criticize or ostracize anybody. But this young man is a fine young man, demonstrated right in this building.”
Jackson had begun the meeting with a prayer that the committee “justify” “the appointment of a good man by a great governor.”
Committee Chairman Jeff Mullis said the senators didn’t need to ask Carr questions the public could hear, because they had each spoken to Carr privately beforehand.
“We had a copy of his resume,” Mullis said.
Carr has degrees in finance and agricultural engineering, which he earned with honors.
Long has degrees in civil engineering from Georgia Tech, for which he studied subjects including transportation planning, traffic flow, and geometric design for transportation.
Sen. Steve Thompson, D-Marietta, defended the unquestioning support of Carr. “I don’t know how good you have to be to size a project up,” he told a reporter after the meeting.
A 2009 law passed as SB 200 set up the planning director position so the governor would have a strong hand on the front end of choosing projects, in hopes of avoiding conflict with the DOT board at the back end.
The House Transportation Committee will consider Carr’s nomination after the primary elections, said Chairman Jay Roberts, R-Ocilla. Roberts said he did not anticipate roadblocks for Carr, but he would hold both a subcommittee hearing and committee hearing so representatives could have adequate opportunity to question Carr.
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plez sez: georgia's good ole boy network strikes again! i'm always hearing how the republicans are about individual responsibility and hard work... they tend to leave out the part about licking the boss's boots and being a faithful political operative.
this story in the ajc.com got me so riled up, i had to respond:
"so… a $2 billion gas tax budget is taken from a guy with degrees in civil engineering and given to a UGA grad (who, i’m sure is a nice guy, but is nothing but a political lap dawg) w/ with ZERO transportation experience on the eve of a statewide vote on spending an additional $1 billion transportation tax (have you people even looked at what parts of Metro Atlanta are going to get a lion’s share of that new construction?) … and NO ONE (democrat or republican) even asks him a softball question?!? you gotta love this state! i am voting NO on T-SPLOST (as many times as they’ll let me)!"
you got it, this yokel gets to "plan" what to do with $1 billion of basically discretionary spending... and i can guess where he'll use his discretion in spending it! the following picture shows the breakdown of the planned spending. my little area (plezWorld is circled in RED) is earmarked for 3 or 4 projects because the I-20 MARTA Expansion project is "contingent upon additional funding"! but the MARTA improvements from north springs to holcolm bridge road is mysteriously fully funded by t-splost!
oh yeah! i thought republicans were against any new taxes?!?
Josh Nesbitt leads a deadly triple option oriented attack for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. The video below highlights how Nesbitt (and the Tech defense) dismantled No. 4 Virginia Tech to take the ACC Coastal Division lead.
To: All Heisman Trophy voters
Fr: Brian McMahon, PhD; School of Psychology; Georgia Institute of Technology
For Your Heisman Consideration: No. 11 Georgia Tech QB Josh Nesbitt
The Heisman Memorial Trophy is awarded to "an individual who deserves designation as the most outstanding college football player in the United States" (www.heisman.com,; 2009), and this is a call for Georgia Tech junior quarterback Josh Nesbitt to be fully considered for this prestigious award. This proposal deviates from the Best Player from the Best Team (BPBT) model that involves awarding the trophy to a player from one of the teams competing in the BCS National Championship Game or its predecessor (e.g., Sam Bradford, Tim Tebow, Troy Smith, Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart, Jason White, Eric Crouch, Chris Weinke et al.). The BPBT model is not without merit, of course, and indeed it is certain that the best teams in the nation feature very good players. However, and also paradoxically, the best teams in the nation likely are so good because they have so many very good (i.e., outstanding) players. Nesbitt, on the other hand, while certainly surrounded by many very good players, leads a Yellow Jacket team (No. 11, AP) that likely does not possess the depth and breadth of talent that does, say, Florida, Texas, or USC (www.rivals.com,; 2 007; www.scout.com,; 2007). It is suggested here that Nesbitt's relative importance to a surging Yellow Jackets (7-1, 5-1) team coming off wins against Virginia and then-No. 4 Virginia Tech - and whose only loss was at then No. 20 Miami - makes him the most outstanding player in college football and worthy of the Heisman Memorial Trophy.
In an effort to place Nesbitt and his performance over two thirds of the season in the appropriate context, it is necessary to understand the player, what he has done, and the importance of his accomplishments to his team. This step is undertaken with the aim of demonstrating that Nesbitt's season to date is superior to any player from a larger-market or higher-profile team afforded more media coverage than Georgia Tech (e.g., Florida, Texas, and USC). First, Nesbitt is an elite athlete who was ranked the 10th-best quarterback prospect of 2007 and received scholarship offers from, among others, Auburn, Florida, and Georgia (www.rivals.com,; 2007; www.scout.com,; 2007). Thus, while he is quarterback at Georgia Tech, a university with four national championships in football (the most recent being 1990), Nesbitt likely could have achieved greatness at schools with higher national profiles. Second, Nesbitt has been the most important player on an 11th-ranked (AP) Yellow Jackets team that has played the nation's 15th-toughest schedule to date (www.cbssportsline.com,; 2009), rushing for 88.4 yards per game (4.1 yards per carry) and 11 TDs on the nation's leading rushing team (292 ypg).
Additionally, Nesbitt has thrown for 979 yards and 4 TDs and has a quarterback passing rating of 149.4 that with more attempts would place him among the nation's most efficient passers (e.g., preseason Heisman favorite Colt McCoy of Texas has a rating of 143.3). Perhaps more important than his own statistics is Nesbitt's role as primary facilitator of Tech's triple-option offense in which the q uarterback must make a series of almost instantaneous decisions on each play. Should the ball be handed off to the fullback, pitched to the halfback, or kept by the quarterback? In wins against Virginia, Virginia Tech, Florida State, Mississippi State, North Carolina, Clemson, and Jacksonville State, Nesbitt has made the correct decisions that have enabled his team's success, while also leading the Yellow Jackets to the seventh-best third-down-conversion rate (48%) in the nation. This last statistic is notably critical because offenses that convert third downs build and maintain momentum while keeping tiring opponent defenses on the field. Finally, Nesbitt's contributions and Tech's offensive success must be considered in relation to a Yellow Jacket defense that surrenders nearly as many yards (355) as the offense gains (421) each game. By comparison, Florida's offense gains nearly twice the number of yards (457) than its defense allows (230) per game; Texas amasses 438 yards per game while surrendering 236; and USC gains 440 and allows 292. This suggests that Nesbitt and the Yellow Jacket offense - of which he accounts for 50% - have a slim margin for error that has been navigated successfully over Tech's seven wins.
To consider something is to think carefully about it (www.merriamwebsters.com,; 2009), and the individuals who vote for the Heisman Memorial Trophy are "informed, competent, and impartial" (www.heisman.com,; 2009). In the spirit of this these guiding principles and the great tradition that is the Heisman Memorial Trophy do we request that you vote Georgia Tech quarterback Josh Nesbitt for this illustrious honor. In addition to the evidence presented above and Georgia Tech's place atop the ACC Coastal standings, additional support for Nesbitt's candidacy abounds. For instance, against then-No. 4 Virginia Tech, Nesbitt's 39-yard, fourth-quarter TD run increased the Yellow Jackets' lead to double digits and e ssentially put away the Hokies. In Tech's thrilling 49-44 win at Florida State, Nesbitt accounted for 105 of Georgia Tech's 116 yards in the fourth quarter as the Yellow Jackets won for the first time at Doak Campbell Stadium. In that same game, Nesbitt demonstrated his character, will, and strength by wrestling away the ball from a Seminoles linebacker who had temporarily recovered a fumble by another Yellow Jacket; Nesbitt's effort allowed Georgia Tech to maintain possession and, eventually, he sealed the win with a 22-yard TD run. Finally, in a game in which Mississippi State was committed to slowing the Yellow Jackets' running game, Nesbitt was 11-for-14 for 266 passing yards and one TD as Tech defeated the Bulldogs in Starkville. Most striking about Nesbitt's passing in that game is that it came a week after he rushed 32 times in a win over then-No. 22 North Carolina. As opposed to the seemingly perpetual search for a Heisman candidate when none readily appears on the national landscape (e.g., recent discussion of an Alabama lineman who blocked two field goals against an unranked team; talk of a Notre Dame quarterback on a 5-2 team with the nation's 25th-toughest schedule), this proposal aims to present a candidate with credentials and intangibles superior to any player in the country. To be outstanding is to literally stand out, and Nesbitt does that from his peers because of both his tremendous statistical season and his relative importance to the No. 11 Yellow Jackets. This is a request for you formally recognize Josh Nesbitt as the nation's most outstanding college football player.
Note: Brian McMahon works in the Georgia Tech School of Psychology. McMahon and some of his fellow psychologists are hoping that voters for the Heisman Trophy will take a strong look at Josh Nesbitt.
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plez sez: this is a plausible argument. as the person who is responsible for 75% of the offensive production on a single-loss team with a passing efficiency among the best in the country, i could see josh nesbitt at the new york athletic club hoisting the trophy that sports the name of past georgia tech head coach john heisman.
we had another plausible candidate a few years ago, joe hamilton came second in voting when he was up for the award. plezWorld would love to see the award sit in the athletic complex of the school where its namesake once coached. JOSH NESBITT for the HEISMAN TROPHY!!!
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Read the Georgia Tech Official Sports Report article about Nesbitt for Heisman.
Okay, the social media bug has bitten plezWorld big time. A few weeks ago it was Twitter and for the last few days, I've been consumed by FaceBook. I've been finding folk from the Sleepy Hollow, New York (where I grew up), from my high school in Hampton, Virginia, from Georgia Tech, relatives, and long lost frat brothers... and even made a few new friends in the process.
NEWTON, Iowa (CNN) -- President Obama marked Earth Day Wednesday by announcing a new initiative to lease federal waters for the purpose of generating electricity from wind and ocean currents.
The president announced the initiative, to be administered by the Interior Department, while reiterating his pledge to push for a comprehensive energy plan that encourages the development of alternative fuel sources, cuts dependence on foreign oil, addresses climate change, and creates new jobs.
Wind power can generate 20 percent of the country's electricity by 2030 and support 250,000 jobs, Obama said during a visit to a wind turbine tower manufacturing plant.
It is part of "beginning a new era of energy exploration," he said.
Contrary to the assertion of some critics, the country does not have to choose between protecting the environment and expanding the economy, Obama said. The real choice is between "prosperity and decline."
The president said there is no "silver bullet" to solving the country's energy needs, and that a variety of energy sources will be required to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. The United States needs to boost domestic production of oil and natural gas in the short term before fully transitioning to alternative sources, Obama said.
But over the long term, new energy sources will be required both to address the issue of climate change and strengthen the economy, he said.
Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday that $300 million in stimulus money will be given to state and local governments to help expand the number of clean and sustainable vehicles in cities around the nation. The program is called the Clean Cities Alternative Fuel and Advanced Technology Vehicles Pilot Program.
"Every day is Earth Day," said Biden at a Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority training facility in Landover, Maryland, where he announced the program.
The plan, according to Biden, would help local governments and transportation authorities invest in clean vehicles and fund the fueling infrastructure to support them.
"From advanced battery cars to hybrid-electric city buses, we're going put Recovery Act dollars to work deploying cleaner, greener vehicles in cities and towns across the nation that will cut costs, reduce pollution and create the jobs that will drive our economic recovery," Biden said in a statement.
The funding adds to $11 billion already allocated to the Department of Energy to boost local energy efficiency programs and weatherize low-income homes. To participate, local governments have to apply to the Clean Cities Program for funding, and they can receive money for a variety of hybrid vehicles and alternative fuels.
Click here to sign the petition to support Al Gore (and Repower America) in support of clean energy legislation that is currently making its way through Congress.
If you love good LIVE R&B music... this one is for you! On Thursday, April 16, 2009, Jennifer Hudson took to the stage at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Georgia. She was joined on-stage for a rare live rendition of "I'm His Only Woman" by her "American Idol" mate, Fantasia! And if that wasn't enough, she was later sang a duet with Jennifer Holliday of their hit "And I Am Telling You" from the "Dreamgirls" soundtrack.
One of my frat brothers shared a bootleg video shot at the show... awesome!
I'm His Only Woman" by Jennifer Hudson and Fantasia
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"And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" by Jennifer Hudson and Jennifer Holliday
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plez sez: sing it Effie!
just to think, when this concert was going on at the Fox, plezWorld was at the public meeting for the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. Southeastern Province Council Meeting about one mile down peachtree street in atlanta. the frat brother who shared this video with me was supposed to be at the public meeting to pick up his 25 year service award... i guess you could say i was on the right street but sitting in the wrong seat! i love my frat, but can't nobody i know sing like this! *smile*
When plezWorld heard the right wing fanatics (of the Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh vein) were organizing a tax day protest akin to the Colonial Period protest when a rogue band of patriots dumped a shipment of Britain's finest tea in the Boston Harbor, I knew that it would quickly devolve in a racist-tinged rant against the Barack Obama presidency (that hasn't seen its hundredth day) and calls for the repeal of forthcoming Obama tax hikes (which as of this writing hasn't been enacted). It left one scratching his head why this people who claim to love this country wasn't out protesting Obama's predecessor's off-the-hook deficit spending of the past eight years? I don't even have to dust off my engineering degree to come up with an answer... one president was an establishment white guy and the other is a liberal Black guy! Darker skin makes an easy target for the rudderless, faceless, tactless right wing fanatics.
Instead of spending too much time interpreting for the reader the myriad of the same that occurred around the country on yesterday, I thought it'd be cool to include excerpts from a few select newspapers. Here goes...
AJC.com covered the Atlanta "Tea Party" for Georgia:
Thousands of tax protesters streamed Wednesday to state government’s front lawn, creating a sign-waving, anthem-shouting mass as darkness fell.
The Atlanta “Tea Party” at the Georgia Capitol stretched for blocks in protest of federal spending and the Obama Administration’s efforts to stimulate the economy.
“We stand here tonight seeing clearly what has been done and what we must do,” state Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ranger), said.
Graves quoted a favorite of the crowd, the late former President Ronald Reagan, who warned “a government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us... blinds us to how it can harm us.”
The Atlanta rally was one of 20 around the state and more than 300 around the country. Billed as grass-roots protests, critics — especially Democrats — have labeled the gatherings as frauds created by Republican advocacy groups with the backing of deep-pocketed lobbyists and Fox News.
Meanwhile, at the Capitol itself, protesters — who model themselves after the Revolutionary-era Boston Tea Party — decried a federal government they say has lost touch.
Speaker after speaker complained about the bailouts of banks, automakers, mortgage lenders and anyone they deemed responsible for the current economic crisis. Fox News erected a massive set where conservative personality Sean Hannity planned to broadcast live.
Former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) spoke. His organization, Freedom Works, is a primary organizer of many of the tea parties around the nation. Armey’s group, along with conservative groups Americans for Prosperity and American Solutions for Winning the Future, founded by former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), helped organize the events. Gingrich was scheduled to speak at the New York City tea party. American Solutions president and CEO Dave Ryan spoke here.
Armey planned to address the concerns critics have raised over who was in charge of the events.
“I plan to tell everybody they need to make it clear it’s their gathering,” Armey said before the rally, as he stood at the corner of Martin Luther King Drive and Courtland Street. “It’s not organized by big shots in Washington.”
Jason Pye of Covington, the legislative director for the Georgia Libertarian Party, had mixed emotions about the rally. He and his fellow Libertarians have long supported the ideals exhorted Wednesday: less government, free markets and a Darwinian-approach to private business.
Many of those speaking, he said, haven’t always protected those ideals.
“I’m happy people are getting together,” he said. “But the movement has been co-opted by Republicans who are trying to regain their identity and want to forget George W. Bush existed. Libertarians aren’t forgetting.”
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The New York Times'Paul Krugman wrote an op-ed piece about the tea parties:
This is a column about Republicans — and I’m not sure I should even be writing it.
Today’s G.O.P. is, after all, very much a minority party. It retains some limited ability to obstruct the Democrats, but has no ability to make or even significantly shape policy.
Beyond that, Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.
But here’s the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn’t stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House. And they could return to power if the Democrats stumble. So it behooves us to look closely at the state of what is, after all, one of our nation’s two great political parties.
One way to get a good sense of the current state of the G.O.P., and also to see how little has really changed, is to look at the “tea parties” that have been held in a number of places already, and will be held across the country on Wednesday. These parties — antitaxation demonstrations that are supposed to evoke the memory of the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution — have been the subject of considerable mockery, and rightly so.
But everything that critics mock about these parties has long been standard practice within the Republican Party.
Thus, President Obama is being called a “socialist” who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre.
But the charge of socialism is being thrown around only because “liberal” doesn’t seem to carry the punch it used to. And if you go back just a few years, you find top Republican figures making equally bizarre claims about what liberals were up to. Remember when Karl Rove declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to the 9/11 terrorists?
Then there are the claims made at some recent tea-party events that Mr. Obama wasn’t born in America, which follow on earlier claims that he is a secret Muslim. Crazy stuff — but nowhere near as crazy as the claims, during the last Democratic administration, that the Clintons were murderers, claims that were supported by a campaign of innuendo on the part of big-league conservative media outlets and figures, especially Rush Limbaugh.
Speaking of Mr. Limbaugh: the most impressive thing about his role right now is the fealty he is able to demand from the rest of the right. The abject apologies he has extracted from Republican politicians who briefly dared to criticize him have been right out of Stalinist show trials. But while it’s new to have a talk-radio host in that role, ferocious party discipline has been the norm since the 1990s, when Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, became known as “The Hammer” in part because of the way he took political retribution on opponents.
Going back to those tea parties, Mr. DeLay, a fierce opponent of the theory of evolution — he famously suggested that the teaching of evolution led to the Columbine school massacre — also foreshadowed the denunciations of evolution that have emerged at some of the parties.
Last but not least: it turns out that the tea parties don’t represent a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment. They’re AstroTurf (fake grass roots) events, manufactured by the usual suspects. In particular, a key role is being played by FreedomWorks, an organization run by Richard Armey, the former House majority leader, and supported by the usual group of right-wing billionaires. And the parties are, of course, being promoted heavily by Fox News.
But that’s nothing new, and AstroTurf has worked well for Republicans in the past. The most notable example was the “spontaneous” riot back in 2000 — actually orchestrated by G.O.P. strategists — that shut down the presidential vote recount in Florida’s Miami-Dade County.
So what’s the implication of the fact that Republicans are refusing to grow up, the fact that they are still behaving the same way they did when history seemed to be on their side? I’d say that it’s good for Democrats, at least in the short run — but it’s bad for the country.
For now, the Obama administration gains a substantial advantage from the fact that it has no credible opposition, especially on economic policy, where the Republicans seem particularly clueless.
But as I said, the G.O.P. remains one of America’s great parties, and events could still put that party back in power. We can only hope that Republicans have moved on by the time that happens.
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In the Washington Post, Dana Milbank opined that the tea parties were flavored with haterade over all things President Obama:
As a tea party, what happened in Lafayette Square across from the White House yesterday was a washout.
There were no buttered scones, none of those dainty cucumber sandwiches and, as it happens, not a spot of tea. Organizers of the conservative protest were told at the last minute that they didn't have a permit to dump a million tea bags in the square, as they had planned.
Instead, they served up a rather noxious brew.
"Hey Big Brother: Show us Your Real Birth Certificate," said one sign in the rain-soaked crowd.
"Blackbeard Obama, King of the Tax Pirates," said another.
A third showed the president dressed up as Steve Urkel, the nerdy black kid with big glasses and suspenders from "Family Matters." "Did I do that?" the sign said, showing a graph of the economy plunging.
Young girls wore T-shirts printed with the message "Don't tax me, bro" -- a play on a protester's famous "Don't tase me, bro" cry at a John Kerry event.
Those messages might explain why Fox News, though actively promoting the "tea party" protests for tax day, tried to argue that it was not behind yesterday's coast-to-coast events. But Fox News analyst Tobin Smith, who took the stage in Lafayette Square yesterday, evidently didn't get the memo. "On behalf of Fox News Channel," he told more than 500 mud-spattered demonstrators, "I want to say: Welcome to the Comedy Channel of America, Washington, D.C."
After a few preliminaries, he went into a Fox News commercial for anchor Glenn Beck. "Anybody watching Glenn?" he asked to cheers. "That was a shameless plug, wasn't it? Glenn says hello as well. He's out at another tea party." Indeed he was, as were Sean Hannity and Neil Cavuto.
A small group of counterdemonstrators, wearing ballgowns, tuxedoes and pig snouts, interrupted and were stripped of their signs. Smith seized the display as an opportunity to highlight the Fox News slogan. "You know what 'Fair and Balanced' means?" he asked. " 'Fair and Balanced' means we take our message and try to overcompensate for their lack of message." Smith left with instructions: "Keep watching Fox, will you?"
The theme was echoed in some of the homemade signs the demonstrators carried, including "Watch Fox News," "Thank You Fox News," and even a recommendation: "Move Glenn Beck to 7 PM."
Without the spectacle of a 1773-style tea-bag dump in the square, the handmade signs became the focus of the event. Though ostensibly an anti-tax protest, it was more of an anti-Obama festival. Among the messages: "The Audacity of the Dope," "O Crap" and Obama as an acronym for "One Big Awful Mistake America." Some messages were ugly ("Napolitano -- Obama's Gestapo Queen," "Hang 'Em High Traitors," and a sign held by a young girl saying "Victim of Child Tax Abuse"). Others were funny ("Don't Talk to Me! I Forgot My Teleprompter"). Certain ones had sinister overtones ("Tax Slavery Sucks," and "Obama bin Lyin"). Then there was the guy holding a Cabbage Patch doll by its hair with the message: "My kid's growth stunted by your stimulus."
Though the left and right will fight over whether the protests were organic or fake AstroTurf, there can be little doubt that the grass roots were well nourished yesterday. The Secret Service informed the protesters that they could not set up their stage in front of the Treasury Department, as they had planned, so they wound up in a muddy patch of grass on the hindquarters side of Andrew Jackson's horse. The legs of the stage began to sink in the mud, and, as the lawn turned into a lake, several of the demonstrators had to wiggle their feet free of the muck.
"I don't think it could rain any harder," one of the organizers said. He urged the crowd to embrace the adversity: "When they tell you you can't bring a million tea bags to Lafayette Square, you work with it -- you find a place to put them."
For somebody, the "place to put them" turned out to be the North Lawn of the White House. As the protest began to break up, a demonstrator hurled what appeared to be a box of tea bags toward the executive mansion. The Secret Service, much like His Majesty's government in Boston, was not amused. The White House was locked down while a robot examined the tea.
Before the main acts, organizers allowed a bit of open microphone time, which resulted in one man telling Obama "You're an idiot!" Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, in a drenched business suit, rallied the crowd before some counterdemonstrators with whistles interrupted; Norquist scolded the "loud brownshirts." Alan Keyes, another headliner, railed against the "orgy of selfishness," the "orgy of debt" and "the scourge of immigration." Americans for Prosperity's Phil Kerpen directed his anger at Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner: "The tax cheat got our permit revoked." And Fox's Smith colorfully described Congress as "the only whorehouse in the world that fails to make a profit."
Talk-show host Mike Church treated the crowd to a mock fascist salute and said that "it's time to have a little revolution, I think. We don't have to fire weapons. You should own them, you should have a lot of ammo to go with them, but you don't have to shoot them."
"Unless we have to!" somebody called out.
"No, you're not going to have to," Church answered.
That's because these rebels, unlike the patriots of 1773, have Fox News.
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Then CNN.com has an article about the nationwide spending protest:
Armed with signs reading "no taxation without deliberation" and "stop bankrupting America," tens of thousands of people spent national tax day at organized "tea party" demonstrations across the country, protesting what some view as excessive government spending and bailouts.
"If you look at these nine little beautiful grandbabies, I'm here for them. Our government's out of control with spending and their future's being robbed," said Mary Wojnas, whose sign had a photo of her grandchildren next to the phrase, "Stop Generational Theft."
"Stop out-of-control spending and stop government takeover and intrusion in our lives. They're here to protect us and beyond that, get out of our way," said Wojnas, who attended a rally in front of the Georgia state capitol in Atlanta.
In Massachusetts, hundreds cheered as people dressed in 18th-century style wigs and clothes tossed crates of tea into Boston Harbor, harkening back to pre-Revolutionary War protests in that city against British taxation policies.
"I think it's only a matter of time before these people quit carrying signs and start doing something else," said Ed McQueen, an Ohio resident who attended the Chicago rally. "What that is, I don't know. Quit paying taxes? Are they going to start carrying sticks and clubs? I don't know." iReport.com: See McQueen's photos
Conservatives borrowed a page from President Obama's Web-savvy style to promote the gatherings on videos and blogs.
But many insisted protesters' grievances cut across party lines, reflecting a general anger among people who contend the government takes too much from their pocketbooks.
"The importance of these tea parties is to let our elected officials know that there's a lot of people out there who are unhappy. They're not Republicans, they're not Democrats, they're everyday Americans who are concerned about our taxes," said said T.J. Welsh, an organizer of a protest attended by thousands in Jacksonville, Florida.
Financial-industry and automotive bailouts were launched at the end of George W. Bush's presidency, but many demonstrators aimed their words and signs at the Obama administration, criticizing it in part for the recently passed stimulus package. iReport.com: See map showing where some tea parties took place
The $787 billion economic stimulus bill President Obama signed in February "was basically shoved down the throat of the American people," Welsh said.
"Now is not the time to be running a $700 billion dollar plus budget through that people did not talk about, that people did not read," Welsh said.
Along with concerns over too many taxes and excessive bailouts, a common theme that emerged from the demonstrations was the threat of big government on the lives of individual citizens.
"People are tired of the nanny state and the growth of government, tired of having our money basically robbed," a demonstrator in Jacksonville said. "[We] want to return to constitutional form of government, limited government that allows people to be free and independent."
"The biggest problem we have is the government is too big ... real people understand that and say we can't take the burden of a burgeoning government," said former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, whose organization, FreedomWorks, helped organize Wednesday's nationwide event.
"We need to reign in the size of government, and once having done so, we can cut taxes responsibly," he said.
Boston wasn't the only place where protesters played off the pre-Revolutionary War tea-dumping protests. As many Americans rushed to file their tax forms Wednesday, cheering crowds across the country heaved huge coolers with "Tea" painted on the side into bodies of water.
Protesters on Wednesday said that like their colonial forebears, they felt their voices were not being heard by their government.
At one protest Wednesday morning a sign read, "I read as much of the stimulus bill as my Congresswoman." Another read, "You can't put lipstick on socialism."
McQueen, a 44-year-old litigation consultant and CNN iReporter, said he had no problem with paying taxes.
"But when no can tell us where this amount of money is going, no one can sketch it out for us, just seems like an injustice," he said.
Bloggers in Seattle, Washington, were the first to bring conservatives together for a rally on February 16 against what they saw as too many government handouts to banks, the auto and mortgage industries. Protests followed in Colorado and Arizona.
The embers turned into a raging fire when later that month, CNBC personality Rick Santelli went off on Obama's policies live on air.
"The government is promoting bad behavior," Santelli said, asking why Obama would make Americans who pay their bills subsidize the mortgages of "losers."
Santelli said he wanted a tea party to happen in Chicago, Illinois, to stand up and angrily demand "No more."
Cheers erupted behind him on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange floor and a video of the rant became viral, drawing comparisons of Santelli to Howard Beale, the fictional "mad as hell" anchorman in the 1976 movie "Network."
The outrage spread, prompting rallies in the Midwest and the South.
Pajamas TV, a conservative Web site that says it gets about 1 million viewers a week, ran streaming video from several protests. PJTV hired McCain campaign poster boy Samuel Joseph "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher to act as a reporter at one of the protests. At least one video shows a protester asking Wurzelbacher if he would like to waterboard Obama.
"I don't approve of that," said Pajamas TV CEO Roger L. Simon. "I would like to hope, and I think, that most people are respectful."
Liberal tea party critics aren't buying it. They call the protests "Astroturf," saying they aren't real grassroots events, but are organized by old-fashioned Republican Party bosses.
The events have been promoted in part by FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, whose Web site says it engages citizens "in the name of limited government and free markets."
"Groups like Americans for Prosperity [are] working and helping an organizing, but no one group, no one organization, no one political party could pull off something like this," Americans for Prosperity president Tim Phillips said. iReport.com: Tax protest brewing in San Antonio
In remarks in Washington on Wednesday, Obama said he'd been true to campaign promises to lessen the tax burden on most Americans.
"My administration has taken far-reaching action to give tax cuts to Americans who need them while jump-starting growth and job creation in the process," the president said.
A tax cut enacted April 1, Obama said, "will reach 120 million families and put $120 billion directly into their pockets."
The plan offers a refundable tax credit of up to $400 for working individuals and up to $800 for married taxpayers who file joint returns, according to the IRS.
Not everyone disapproves of Obama's tax policies. In March, 62 percent of people taking a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll said they approved how Obama is handling taxes. The sampling error was plus or minus 4.5 percent.
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plez sez: 'nuff said! NO ONE likes paying taxes. the only people who received a benefit from the bailouts were the top tier executives of the companies who received them.
the whole idea of a tax day revolt was a publicity stunt by a handful of republicans trying to find a way to make themselves relevant during a time that their party is mired in irrelevancy! every argument made today (save the attacks on Obama) could've been leveled against george w. bush. so the impetus behind their drinking their haterade-flavored tea is quite evident... and it ain't got nothing to do with taxes!
Louisville, UConn, and Pittsburgh stroll into the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament from the Big East Conference (with a strong showing from North Carolina from the ACC).
Surprising? No.
Fair? Maybe.
What about Duke (winner of the ACC)? What about Memphis (from last year's tournament final and winner of Conference USA)?
Excerpts from ESPN.com article about the 2009 NCAA brackets:
(ESPN.com) -- The Big East made history again. The conference that came together for basketball decades ago hit another milestone Sunday, when three of its teams earned top seeds in the NCAA tournament.
Louisville, Pittsburgh and Connecticut were all No. 1, joined by North Carolina of the Atlantic Coast Conference, never an outsider this time of year.
The conference also broke new ground in 1985, when it became the first to place three teams in the Final Four.
"It speaks volumes for what it means to win the Big East," said Louisville coach Rick Pitino, whose Cardinals are the tournament's overall top seed and will play in the Midwest.
The Cardinals (28-5), winners of the regular-season and conference championships in the nation's top-ranked conference, will open against the winner of an opening-round game Tuesday between Alabama State and Morehead State.
The Final Four is scheduled for Ford Field in Detroit on April 4 and 6. Last year, all four No. 1 teams made it to the Final Four. But Pitt (East), Carolina (South) and UConn (West) all know its called March Madness for a reason -- things rarely go to form.
So, time to break out the brackets, sharpen some pencils and pay into an office pool (or two).
Maybe do a little griping here and there.
Among the aggrieved: Duke and Memphis, both overlooked in the quest for top seeding, settling for No. 2 seeds despite winning their conference tournaments. Memphis is often downgraded for playing in the less-than-steller Conference USA, but John Calipari's team proved people wrong last year, making it to the national title game.
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plez sez: not much interest in plezWorld until the second weekend (when all those 10 thru 16 seeds have been eliminated). i really enjoy it when it comes down to the elite eight.
the only upset i see is memphis taking out uconn to go to the final four.
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in a related story, the georgia tech women's basketball team is going to its third ncaa tournament in three years... GO JACKETS! they have become a bigger force in the acc than the men's team!
Morris Brown College is in downtown Atlanta. This once proud historically black college (HBCU) was founded in 1881 - one of only handful of HBCU's to have been founded by former slaves.
The luster of this small college has continued to be diminished over the years after it lost its accreditation by Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) for shoddy bookkeeping and a shortage of professors with advanced degrees in December 2002. With the loss of accreditation, the students of the school lost the opportunity to receive any federal or state financial aid.
For the past six and a half years, Morris Brown has been scraping and scratching for survival with few students, a handful of dedicated faculty, and a big lack of money to sustain itself and its most basic needs (the water to the campus was shut off by the city of Atlanta for a bill that exceeded $350,000).
On Tuesday afternoon, what is undoubtedly the final salvo of Morris Brown College was hurled over the bow into the trash heap of history with the auction of one of its classroom buildings on the steps of the Fulton County Courthouse steps for $900,000.
What follows are excerpts from the AJC.com about the sale of Jordan Hall:
Financially embattled Morris Brown College lost a classroom building, Frederick D. Jordan Hall, to foreclosure on Tuesday.
Investors, who financed a $13.1 million construction loan for the building in 1996, bought Jordan Hall for a fraction of that sum Tuesday at a foreclosure sale on the steps of the Fulton County Courthouse. The building sold for $900,000.
What will happen to the property is unclear. Lawyers present at the foreclosure sale refused to comment. Repeated telephone calls to attorneys for the U.S. Bank Association, which represents the investors, were not returned.
“This is certainly not a great day for the Morris Brown family and the Atlanta community,” college board of trustees vice chairman Sonny Walker said Tuesday in a prepared statement. “However, the glass is not empty.”
Walker and other Morris Brown boosters spent Monday scrambling to delay the forced sale of the building one more time. Jordan Hall originally was scheduled to be auctioned on Jan. 6, but administration officials and Morris Brown boosters persuaded investors to delay that sale. They won a second reprieve in February.
The loss of Jordan Hall is likely to have little, if any, impact on day-to-day campus life, administration officials said. The college now has about 200 students enrolled, college officials said Tuesday.
“The students are in class and Morris Brown College is open for business,” Stanley Pritchett, acting president of the college, said in a prepared statement. “We are making strides toward securing interim funding which will enable us to relieve the strain of weekly financial crises … but the need for large donations is critical – especially from the Atlanta community.”
Jordan Hall, once home to the school’s Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Administration program, is locked. Furniture and equipment is stacked inside several entrances to the building. The Ruth Hall Hodges Art Gallery, which had space in Jordan Hall, is padlocked.
Despite the sale, Morris Brown continues to owe $12.2 million for the defaulted construction loan.
Morris Brown’s financial problems go beyond that debt. The college recently averted closing its doors when Atlanta extended a Feb. 17 deadline for Morris Brown to pay $214,000 in overdue water bills.
As of last week, according to a news release, supporters of Morris Brown had raised $150,000 to pay the water bills, now due March 19.
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plez sez: i can't hold my tongue any longer... morris brown college will never return as an HBCU! it is a relic, a dusty skeleton of a dinosaur looking back at days when it had meat on its bones. morris brown college [sic] is an institution that outlived its usefulness and relevance.
when the SACS revoked morris brown's accreditation in 2002, that was the last gasp of a sick college on life support. its reputation long since in tatters, the pride of a once proud HBCU couldn't muster the energy of one last lap around the atlanta university center... its brothers and sisters at morehouse, spelman, and clark atlanta university drove past the wreck that was morris brown college as if its demise was preordained.
plezWorld knows a number of graduates of the "other" schools in the AUC; they play lip service and sob crocodile tears over the demise of morris brown college, yet still snicker among themselves that they knew this day would come, and welcome the removal of the faded purple banners and its subpar students. over the years, i've heard the derisive statements about the caliber of students who attended "mo' brown high school"!
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before turning your nose up at morris brown, the rest of the auc is also in a bit of pinch. just a few weeks ago, clark atlanta cut 70 full-time faculty and 30 full-time staffers. it combined some courses and cancelled all pe classes for the remainder of the semester. the cost to attend clark atlanta, including food, housing and tuition, is about $25,000. about 90 percent of its students receive financial aid.
and morehouse laid off about one-third of its part-time instructors... tough times can be found all over the auc. not quite as bad as over at mo' brown, but tough never-the-less.
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morris brown college was the first HBCU founded by black people... it got a noble start in 1881. at one time, this proud school stood shoulder to shoulder with the member schools in the AUC. time, decay, neglect, and misappropriation of federal funds slowly sucked the life from the school. plezWorld arrived in the ATL in the early '80's to attend georgia tech; morris brown was already on the decline. it was the joke of the auc when i showed up in atlanta.
enrollment in 2008 is struggling to stay above three digits - i sat in undergraduate classes with more students than the entire enrollment of morris brown. i don't know anyone with a college age student who would send their child there. the water to the campus was temporarily shut off in december 2008 (the school is still over $200,000 in arrears on its water bill). a handful of supporters have taken to collecting money from motorists who pass the campus in a vain attempt to save the school. every month or so, i get an e-mail message with an appeal to contribute money to the lost cause that is mo' brown. there are less than 10 faculty at the school. a degree from the school isn't worth much more than the paper it's written on. i'm afraid that the auctioning off of jordan hall was merely a public acknowledgement that old mo' brown has finally hit rock bottom.
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i propose a re-purposing of the school. for the past 20 years, it has been an unmitigated failure as an institution of higher learning, maybe it would fare better as a prep school or a boarding school for at-risk youth? make it an attractive alternative school that prepares young black boys to attend college. it has been little more than a glorified high school of late, it may as well seal the deal and make it official.
there are billions of dollars in the Obama Stimulus Package for education. maybe morris brown could re-purpose itself to be a trade school for those who want to become certified for work in the new green economy? the school has classrooms, dormitories, and a cafeteria... the only thing it's missing are new students. this is a new day and morris brown needs to move away from the faded 19th century HBCU model to a purpose that is more relevant to the 21st century.
It snowed Sunday afternoon in the Atlanta area. Nice big fluffy snowflakes. Depending on how cold it is on Monday morning, it may disturb rush hour, but it was a minor diversion in plezWorld.
It started where I live around 11:30 AM and snowed on and off most of the afternoon. At this writing, it had been hours since the last snowflake fell, but it is getting kind of cold out there. The roads will probably be slick in the morning.
I read a report last week that said Atlanta is third in the nation behind Las Vegas and Detroit in vacant houses! USA Today reports that a record 1 in 9 US homes are vacant, a glut created by the housing boom and subsequent collapse.
Yesterday's AJC.com reported that there are over 6,000 unsold NEW condos in Atlanta! That doesn't count the hundreds of foreclosed and abandoned units in the metro area. There is a glut of housing in the Atlanta area, as the recession and foreclosures and unsold units push the market values south along with the rest of the economy.
On Saturday, 40 condos in plush Atlantic Station are going on the auction block. Element at Atlantic Station was said to be sold out three years ago... the place is half-empty today! Some Atlantic Station residents fear the Element auction will further depress values. Homeowners across the country are making mortgages payments higher than what their dwellings are worth today because of plummeting values. That’s led to property abandonment.
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The jobless rate in Georgia hit a record high in January, jumping to 8.6 percent, the state’s Labor Department announced Thursday. The rate the previous month was 8.1 percent, but the layoffs have continued across broad segments of the economy.
“We are officially sailing in uncharted economic waters,” said Michael Thurmond, state labor commissioner.
The jobless rate has climbed 65 percent from its level a year ago. The previous record was 8.3 percent in 1983, as the economy was emerging from what had been at the time, the longest recession since the Great Depression.
The current recession began at the end of 2007 and is widely projected to continue at least until late this year. Pessimists say it will linger into next year or even beyond. Unemployment typically crests near the end of a downturn or after the expansion has begun.
Nearly 413,000 Georgians were looking for work, an increase of 62.9 percent over the year, according to the Labor Department. Fewer than half of those people are receiving unemployment insurance benefits.
The current rate is the highest since the U.S. Labor Department standardized jobless numbers among the states in 1976.
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State coffers have confirmed what the rest of the data have said: The recession in Georgia has deepened. Revenue from tax collections in January came up $262 million short of the amount received during the same month a year earlier — a 14.3 percent decrease, the Georgia Department of Revenue announced Friday.
The shortfall provides a look in the rearview mirror, reflecting what has been a contracting economy — the cutbacks of profit-squeezed companies and debt-laden, paycheck-challenged consumers.
For tax collection, the economic currents have nearly all been head winds. On the corporate side, company spending is down, with many businesses nervous about the future and others coping now with falling sales. The result is fewer purchases, which means lower tax revenue.
But lower corporate profits also mean lower tax payments, and a series of companies in recent weeks have announced lower earnings, including metro Atlanta companies such as Rubbermaid and Equifax. Company cost cutting also translates into insecurity at best and hardship at worst for Atlanta workers. And that translates into less consumer spending on taxable items.
It has been a painful spiral: As jobs were lost, spending retreated, which meant companies cut and more jobs were lost. Unemployment in Georgia has jumped from 4.5 percent to 8.1 percent in the past year — climbing even faster than the national numbers. About 400,000 Georgians are officially jobless, according to the state Labor Department. If workers worried about layoffs tend to spend less on taxable items, those without a job are likely to be even more frugal. All of that’s bad for tax revenue.
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plez sez: the picture above shows the more than 3,000 people who were lined up for a job fair in atlanta... there were 3,000 people in line at 7:00 am waiting for the 10:00 am opening!
the economic prognosis is bleak... at best. there are no signs that the recession is letting up in georgia. we'll keep plugging away in hopes that the stimulus plan signed into law by PRESIDENT OBAMA will loosen things up just alittle. times are really tight in plezWorld... i'm ready for the recovery... NOW!
In November 2006, a group of Atlanta police officers executed a "no knock" warrant at the home of Kathryn Johnston in a drug infested part of Atlanta. Thinking someone was breaking in, 92-year old Johnston squeezed off a warning shot from the old pistol she kept by her side. The police officers burst in behind a hail of gunfire, leaving the elderly woman riddled with bullets in her own home.
The police officers planted some marijuana in the house and "lamented" the old lady's loss of life while trying to protect her "drug empire"! Yeah, a 92-year old drug dealer!
Well, two and a half years later, the cops who perpetrated the crime are finally brought to justice.
Excerpts from AJC.com story:
A federal judge who sent three fallen cops to prison for a notorious drug raid that left an elderly woman dead said Tuesday that Atlanta Police Department performance quotas unduly influenced the officers’ behavior.
At the close of an emotional two-day hearing, Carnes sentenced former officers Gregg Junnier, Jason R. Smith and Arthur Bruce Tesler to between 5 and 10 years in prison.
At the hearing, Tesler’s lawyer provided examples of other Atlanta police officers breaking the rules or violating the law and said a disturbing culture of misconduct pervades the force.
Carnes imposed the most severe sentence — 10 years — on Smith, 36, who obtained the illegal, no-knock search warrant allowing officers to batter down 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston’s door.
A terrified Johnston, thinking she was victimized by a home invasion, fired a warning shot through the door. Narcotics officers responded with a hail of gunfire, killing her.
Carnes sentenced Junnier, 42, to 6 years in prison. Junnier, the most experienced officer, was the first to cross the “blue line” — the unspoken code of silence among police — and divulge to the FBI what really happened at Neal Street and how the officers concocted a sophisticated coverup.
For Junnier’s cooperation, Carnes cut his time from the 10 years recommended by sentencing guidelines.
The judge gave the biggest break to Tesler, saying prosecutors’ recommendation of a 10- to 14-year term was “unduly harsh” because, overall, he played a “minor role.” She sentenced Tesler, 42, to five years in prison.
The FBI also found performance quotas of 9 arrests and 2 search warrants a month expected of officers, McKenney said. Officers who failed to meet their quotas risked being transferred, he said.
This helped explain, Carnes said, why Smith, Junnier and Tesler — three men who were devoted family men and who gave selflessly to the communities — began cutting corners through lies.
Carnes also ordered all three former officers to reimburse Johnston’s estate the $8,180 it cost to bury the 92-year-old woman.
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plez sez: but will there ever be justice for Kathryn Johnston? she's still dead. it may be years before the family sees the $8,000 for her funeral costs. what ever became of her house?
this is one of those stories that have no happy endings. these cops will do some time, but nothing equal to first degree murder during the commission of a crime. ms. johnston's family will never be adequately compensated for their loss. and i'll bet my paycheck that to this day, drug dealers are still slinging crack down the street or around the corner from where ms. johnston was slain.
DeShawn Snow confirmed that she was booted because she wasn’t enough of a “circus” drama queen relative speaking to the others... in other words, she wasn't good television. If you recall, Lisa Hartwell played nice (almost too nice) until she came out of the box Kim during the reunion show.
Here is a snippet of Snow's comments at Essence.com:
ESSENCE.COM: What reason did they give for not inviting you back for the second season?
SNOW: [A producer of the show] called and said that I was “too human for a circus show” and that because the show did so well, they are about to pump up the drama and they didn’t think that I would fit in. He gave me an example, saying that during the reunion when I found out what a few of the other ladies said about me, they were expecting me to say more, but I’m not the type to go “television” and start acting crazy because somebody’s talking about me. I’m fine with the decision. It wasn’t my decision. They let me go and there are no hard feelings. I am thankful for the opportunity.
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In other Atlanta "Housewives" news, it was rumored that Usher's wife, Tameka Raymond, was slated to be the new "Real Housewife" in the Atlanta show. Raymond quickly quashed those rumors, "Although [Bravo] approached me, and I was flattered by the offer, I will not be joining the 'Real Housewives' cast."
Raymond, the CEO of Swanky Image Group and owner of Hides & Dungarees Denim Collection, welcomed her second son, Naveid Ely, with her pop star hubby last December. The couple had their first son, Usher V, in November 2007.
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plez sez: now they got me waiting for season two of this *ISH*! deshawn wasn't a good fit from the beginning, she was too nice (and boring). the ONLY reason to tune is to see the fur fly and she wasn't gonna make that happen, so they'll find someone who will!
now before everyone in the ATL starts ranting and raving about the depiction of Black women in atlanta in the show, you should check out the foolishness that is currently going on in the "Real Housewives of Orange County"! cattiness, small minds, and ridiculousness of the idle rich knows no race... those white chicks are just as outrageous as their Black counterparts.
On the strength of exceeding all expectations during his first season as head coach of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team (and to ensure that he doesn't jump ship anytime soon), for posting a 9-3 record, and for whuppin' the Georgia Bulldogs for the first time in 7 years, ACC Coach of the Year Paul Johnson was given a 7 year, $17.7 million contract extension.
Next year, he'll make $2.3 million and an opportunity to make more in incentives (probably based on the bowl selection and team wins). This deal makes Johnson the second-highest paid coach in the ACC, behind Bobby Bowden at FSU (around $2.4 million a year). He joins Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech and Butch Davis at North Carolina in the $2 million-a-year club in the ACC.
Johnson was named the ACC coach of the year after leading the Jackets to a 9-3 record, including wins over FSU, Miami, Clemson and Georgia. Tech will play LSU in the Chick-fil-A bowl on Dec. 31. A win would be their second 10-win season in the past decade.
Johnson was hired by Tech AD Dan Radakovich in December of 2007 after Johnson spent six seasons at Navy. He has a 116-42 career record as a coach at Tech, Navy and Georgia Southern.
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Here's to you Coach Johnson, the "Ramblin' Wreck Song"
GO JACKETS! STING 'EM!
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plez sez: this is a well-deserved contract... he is worth EVERY PENNY! and i'm sure he will get an upgraded contract in a few years when Tech becomes a perennial threat for top ACC and national championship honors. johnson turned around the attitude and play of a football team that was comfortable in its mediocrity. he took players that he didn't recruit and turned them into winners. imagine what he's going to do with a team that is stocked with his recruits?
we were competitive against north carolina and just weren't mentally prepared to finish off virginia. if we'd won those two games, not only would we be in a bcs bowl game this year, but we would've been getting some serious consideration for national championship play. we haven't had a team this primed for national exposure since george o'leary slithered off in 2001 to scratch his notre dame itch!
oh yeah, he's a really nice guy, too. during the hub-bub after tech's win over fsu, johnson stopped amidst the throng of well-wishers to autograph the back of my daughter's t-shirt while we waited for the team to emerge at the players' gate. a true class act in plezWorld!
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AS AN ASIDE: i'm pleased as punch with this development, because this will ensure that coach johnson will remain on the flats for at least a few more years. but on the other hand, this news is a bit disturbing in light of the nation's economic woes and the growing unemployment figures for the state of georgia. georgia tech is a state school and a number of programs that i've supported over the past couple of years at the school have either had budget cutbacks or have been eliminated completely... and NONE of these programs have budgets that come close to a million dollars, much less $2.3 million.
it's a shame that tech can find $2 million to pay a football coach, but cannot find a fraction of that amount to support the students of a leadership development program who i mentor.
What premiered to low viewership in October ended with over 2.8 million viewers and a television phenomenon... those wacky "Housewives of Atlanta." Many in Atlanta were aghast at their antics and ghetto-fabulous ways, others around the country were taken in and took a weekly hour long escape with the women who call the metro Atlanta area home.
"The Real Housewives of Atlanta" is the third incantation of the "Real Housewives..." brand of Bravo television. The first one began a few years ago with a similar line-up of ambitious women obsessed with conspicuous consumption on a grand scale in a gated community in Orange County, California (I just started watching Season 4 which has a few new faces). Earlier this year, a New York group was added to the franchise. And a predominantly Black group of women were found to anchor this year's newest series.
The premise is pretty simple: film the day-to-day antics of a close knit group of financially well-off women, and then let the sparks fly as they try to out spend, out class, out brag, and out consume their female counterparts on the show. Add a healthy dose of alcohol (fine wine and champagne, of course), big houses in gated communities, and plenty of free time for them to show each other up... sit back and watch the fur fly! All three series (Orange County, New York, and Atlanta) followed the same formula and all three series (to a certain extent) receive the same reaction from the "cast."
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found some Atlanta housewives who weren't particularly happy with the depiction of the ATL in the show (basically lapping up the Haterade):
“It was a mess — the worst representation of women in Atlanta I’ve ever seen,” said Andrea Clark, a housewife in Hampton, south of Atlanta.
“I would not want to show my face in public after that,” she added.
“I just thought it was awful,” said Sherri Caldwell, a housewife in Virginia-Highlands and author of the book “The Rebel Housewife.”
“Incredibly distasteful,” added Marie Killory, an Atlanta mother of three.
The Bravo series, which debuted last week and continues tonight, follows five very wealthy women living in gated communities in the northern suburbs as they shop, spat and crow about their status.
“I consider myself among Atlanta’s wealthy elite,” Sheree Whitfield said in the first episode, as she threw herself a birthday party with security guarding the front door and a cake shaped like a huge Louis Vuitton purse. Her friend Kim Zolciak wrote a $68,000 personal check for a Cadillac Escalade, while another housewife, Deshawn Snow, took viewers on a tour of her 15,000-square-foot mansion and interviewed applicants for her staff.
Two are married to professional athletes, and a third is divorcing an athlete, seeking a “lump sum” in “seven figures.” Another appears to be supported by a man she calls “Big Poppa.”
The timing of a TV show that wallows in wealthy indulgence when millions are panicking about their financial futures struck some viewers as especially tacky.
“In this dreadful financial climate, it is particularly unbelievable to watch this level of conspicuous consumption,” Bethenny Frankel, who was one of the “Real Housewives of New York,” posted in a blog — one ostensibly set up to promote the series on Bravo’s Web site.
Frankel called the Atlanta series “ ‘Cribs’ meets ‘Jerry Springer.’”
Well, Bravo has decided the peach of the Atlanta group is too juicy to pass up, so they are about to begin filming Season Two. The final episode of Season One broke the record for the number of viewers of a cable show! Trashy? Yes! But then again, who can look away from a train wreck that is barreling down the track?!?
Who isn't curious to find out what has happened with Kim and Big Poppa?
Will Eric Snow - the pro basketball player - let his wife, DeShawn, come back to the show? She appeared to be the most level-headed and drama-averse of the group.
How fake can Sheree get? And did she get seven-figures in her divorce from former Atlanta Falcon's player Bob Whitfield?
How is business going with Lisa? Did she ever snatch big wig Kim bald-headed in a catfight?
And rumor had it that NeNe and her family was put out of their big house... did they get to keep it? Or are they living in an apartment?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that the popular Bravo series will be back for Season Two:
Or we can take the press release quote from the Bravo exec, in less-than-colorful business-speak:
“The level of engagement on Atlanta far surpasses a typical series on cable or broadcast, with our viewers deepening their connection to the show through live wireless chats, daily blogs and additional footage online,” said Frances Berwick, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Bravo. “This, along with the colorful personalities of our housewives, helped drive the series to a watercooler sensation.”
I anticipate all five housewives will be back. I’m not sure if they are contractually required to be around for a second season but my guess is yes. I ran into Sheree Whitfield yesterday at Frank Ski’s [an Atlanta radio personality] wine auction and she said the promotion the show gives her is priceless in terms of getting her clothing line off the ground, that it’s well worth the aggravation of being insulted online and being scrutinized to such a degree.
A launch date for season two has yet to be identified though my guess is late spring or summer. I bet they will start shooting the season in January or February.
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plez sez: okay, guilty as charged! i still have season one of "real housewives of atlanta" saved on my dvr - i can't get enough of the reunion show! before you level any attacks on plezWorld, you need to know i am also recording season four of "the real housewives of orange county" as i type (it comes on tuesday nights at 10 PM ET on Bravo).
for some reason, trashy reality television like this appeals to the voyeur in me... it's also good to see that having lots of money in a bank account doesn't absolve one the troubles that everyone else experiences. i didn't see the atlanta housewives as a representative cross-section of atlanta anymore than the group in orange county speaks for the women of southern california! actually, it was pretty cool seeing how money doesn't change things that much; yeah, you can hire a chef to cook for you and you can live in a 15,000 square-foot home and drive high end automobiles. but more than likely, you still have to get your ass up for work everyday, your kids still need parental guidance or they'll go astray, happiness isn't found in a bank account or with material things, and if you're ghetto before you "get paid," more than likely you'll remain ghetto well after you "gotten paid," right, Sheree?!?
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plez sez:if you missed season one, bravo plays a healthy dose of re-runs on the weekends... check out the housewives of the ATL!
~ husband ~ father ~ son ~ brother ~ mentor ~ subdivision dweller ~ northern by birth ~ southern by choice ~ raised a black baptist, now guided by the spiritual ~ raised a kennedy democrat, now politically dead center (moderate) ~ raised in a Cadillac Coupe Deville, now hooked on an SUV ~ college educated and still a student of life ~ wild college frat boy and now a settled alumnus ~ intellectual yet fun-loving geek ~ technical and leading edge ~ corporate cog ~ consultant ~ college football saturday devotee ~ and a ramblin' gamblin' helluva engineer (GO JACKETS!) ~
This is my personal blog. The views expressed on these pages are mine; and they are in no way associated with the views of my employer, family, friends, or associates.
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