New Here?
Been Around A While?

The new, 2004-2005 Flagpole Guide to Athens is on the street. Whatever your station in life it can help you find your way around Athens. Students, faculty, townspeople young and old rely on the Guide to help them find what they're looking for in Athens. The Guide features the most comprehensive local listings of places to eat, drink, hear music, see art, watch movies, enjoy theater, relax in the parks, find a place for the night or learn about cool things to do. It's got a couple of handy maps, too.

Pick up your copy of The Flagpole Guide To Athens: for those who want to know their way around.

The Flagpole Guide To Athens is available throughout the year all over Athens at more than 250 locations and online at www.flagpole.com.

Bulldozers Away!
Saving Trees And Creeks

At a recent ACC Commission meeting, local landscape architect Rex Gonnsen offered commissioners a couple of suggestions for reducing the tree-clearing and the "mass grading" that tends to precede development of residential subdivisions.

Gonnsen has helped design some of the county's most-criticized as well as its most-praised developments, and he has frequently offered public input on development practices and regulations. He told commissioners that grading or flattening an entire area (rather than grading each homesite individually) is a "big change" in development practices from past years - driven by developers "from outside the community" - and one he thinks should not be allowed.

"We're allowing people to do site construction without a building permit for a house," he said, under the guise of grading for road and utility lines. In notes he presented later to the Community Tree Council, Gonnsen said sites are being cleared "without even knowing what the house is going to look like" and the entire tract is then sold to the builders who will build the houses. Building homes on "slab" foundations - flat concrete pads rather than raised foundations with crawl spaces - is part of the problem, Gonnsen said. (Slabs are cheaper but can only be used in flat or well-drained locations; the cost difference, according to one developer, is around $10,000 per home.)

Gonnsen also praised the county's current requirements (implemented in 2000) that trees be planted (or some existing trees retained) in new parking lots - most national franchises would never do this if it weren't required, he wrote. And the county's requirement for street trees in new developments means "Athens will be a much better-looking city" in years to come, though developers often don't realize they can meet this requirement by keeping existing trees, as well as by planting new ones.

"Keeping a tree is a cost saving to the developer," Gonnsen wrote, but the requirements for sidewalks and (in some zones) on-street parking leave limited room for saving trees. He argued for reducing the on-street parking requirement of one car per house.

But ACC Planning Director Brad Griffin thinks that limiting "mass grading," as Gonnsen envisions, would require changing the rules - not just re-interpreting them. Commissioners have already asked his department to take a look at a couple of possible changes in subdivision rules - like reducing the amount of unbuildable land (wetlands and required buffers, for example) that may be used for credit when figuring density allowances. Another change could prohibit grading any areas with 25-percent or steeper slopes that are larger than 5000 square feet in size. (Such steep terrain is difficult to replant and stabilize against soil erosion.) Griffin expects these proposals to be presented to the commission in September. And Griffin said his department has begun notifying nearby property owners - those within 400 feet - by mail when zoning changes are requested. Information on items coming before the planning commission and the hearings board are on the planning department's website, accessible through www.athensclarkecounty.com.

And a county committee continues to consider which streams should be protected under Athens-Clarke County's 75-foot buffer ordinance, one of the state's most stringent. The county's stream buffers - triple the state's requirement of 25 feet from streambanks, but less than the 100 feet suggested by researchers at UGA's Institute of Ecology - went into effect four years ago, but many streams were not included in that ordinance. Last year, ACC Commissioners voted to temporarily include all county streams until criteria can be developed to determine which steams (and perhaps lakes and rivers as well) merit the increased protection. The ordinance prevents clearing or building next to creeks, and that protects water quality by naturally filtering the rainwater that flows into the creeks. It also preserves habitat corridors for wildlife. But it can prevent landowners from developing their land as they might wish, and for this reason it has been controversial.

The group charged with balancing these concerns is the county's Stormwater Advisory Committee, which includes representatives of Athens Area Homebuilders Association, Upper Oconee Watershed Network and Athens Area Chamber of Commerce, as well as county staffers who specialize in water issues. The committee may make recommendations to the ACC Commission this winter, according to county stormwater management engineer Melanie Melton. She said the committee still has "a lot of unresolved issues," and that "a very small percentage" of properties might be prevented from being developed at all. Deciding which streams to protect is complicated because some streams exist only in wet weather, and not all streams show up on maps. There has also been a reluctance to place new restrictions on existing homeowners near creeks.

John Huie
John Huie lives in the woods on a creek.

Info To Go
The Cloud Covers You

The University of Georgia's New Media Institute has provided downtown Athens with free wireless Internet access for the past two years; with several new initiatives, the organization looks to broaden its applications and become more useful for Athens residents on the go.

What was once known simply as the WAGzone has been redefined as The Cloud, and it promises to be a useful tool for the delivery of information right to your cell phone.

"We started looking at how people use mobile media," says Scott Shamp, director of the NMI. "We don't even like the term 'wireless,' because that tells you what something isn't, not what it is. So we've always been about finding out how people access information on the go."

Currently, The Cloud - accessible on the Internet at www.athenscloud.com or by connecting via wireless card downtown - offers you the opportunity to sign up, log in and receive information about a number of downtown businesses. The information is accessible directly from the website or by choosing the option of having the information delivered via text message to your cell phone. "The laptop really isn't a mobile medium… it's not really on-the-go," says Shamp, discussing the decision to head in the cell-phone direction. "We started looking more at PDA's but those things are going nowhere. The mobile media device that everyone is using, however, is their cell phone. The latest iteration of The Cloud is tapping into all the new features that people are starting to have on their cell phones."

Once you've selected a business you'd like to receive updates from - Blue Sky Café, for instance, or Hot Corner Coffee - you can customize how you'd like to receive updates, at what time and for how long. Possible uses, according to Shamp, are notification of special sales at restaurants and retail stores, drink specials at bars and more.

Flagpole's in on the gig as well, as the music department will send out a pick of the evening every night, recommending a specific music event. All you've got to do is sign up.

Bailey White, the director of marketing and client services for The Cloud, also explains another service currently under development. He says The Cloud is working to establish a friend-finder application - essentially, you can post a message to The Cloud and it'll be sent to all the people on your friend list (a feature similar to those of AOL Instant Messenger or Friendster). For instance, you hit the Manhattan at 10 p.m., post a message saying where you are, and all your friends receive notification. "This would be a great way to avoid certain people too!" says Shamp, laughing.

The University's not doing this all out of benevolence, naturally. If successful, it's looking to license Cloud technology to other communities and businesses around the world.

For more information on The Cloud and to register (free) for up-to-the-minute updates from local businesses - like Flagpole - visit www.athenscloud.com.

Chris Hassiotis
Chris Hassiotis is Flagpole music editor.

Institute Index
Who Is Watching?

• Number of government surveillance programs currently in operation: 14

• Year that Congress voted to de-fund the "Total Information Awareness" surveillance program due to civil liberties concerns: 2003

• Year that the Pentagon admitted it planned to continue "TIA-like activities… outside public view": 2004

• Number of Florida residents a test-run of the "MATRIX" database program flagged as "having a statistical likelihood of being terrorists": 120,000

• Estimated value of contracts that will be given to companies for "anti-terror" projects each year until 2010, in billions: $150

• Number of lobbyists hired by corporations to secure homeland security contracts: 569

• Number of communities that have passed resolutions opposing the Patriot Act and other "unconstitutional" surveillance programs: 344

Sources on file at the Institute for Southern Studies, www.southernstudies.org.

Animal Control
Last Week's Scorecard

Athens-Clarke County Animal Control responded to 63 calls.
       7 complaints of animal cruelty
       3 bite cases

30 animals impounded
       24 dogs
       3 raccoons
       1 wild rabbit
       1 domestic rabbit
       1 rat

14 dogs placed
       7 adopted
       2 reclaimed
       5 turned over to other agencies

Elitist Slavery
Exploitation And Exclusion

In college, it is said, you learn the most about life outside of class. Working to pay my tuition gave me a first-rate education in the American class structure.

Every student who attends a given university meets its standards for grades and test scores, but they fall into categories with distinctly different opportunities for success: the rich and the poor. When a rich kid finds himself with a few extra hours to kill, he can volunteer in his community, crusade for a political cause or test the limits of his drinking capacity. If he's ambitious, he can pick up valuable business contacts and work experience as an intern.

Students from poor families, on the other hand, can't afford to work for free. They choose jobs based on pay and hours. I drove a taxi and drove a forklift, unionized gigs that did little for my resume but kept the bursar at bay.

A classmate I dated (we'll call her "Karen") shared my goal of breaking into journalism. Because her parents were loaded, she accepted an unpaid internship at The New York Times.

"The work is beside the point," Karen said. "I make copies and run out to get sandwiches. But I get the chance to suck up to editors." It worked. The paper hired her as a reporter straight out of college, minus the typically required journalism degree.

Mark Oldman, co-author of The Internship Bible and co-founder of the career counseling company Vault, Inc., says that for college graduates, internships are now a prerequisite for a shot at a good entry-level job. About 80 percent of all graduating seniors, he says, have worked as an intern - most of them unpaid. And the National Association of Colleges and Employers estimates that 38 percent of interns eventually get hired full-time.

"It used to be that internships were a useful enhancement to one's résumé," observes Oldman. "Now it's universally perceived as an essential stepping stone to career success."

In a reflection of the topsy-turvy truism that those who can afford to pay the most get everything for free, the best-off corporate and government employers hire the most elite slave laborers.

"The more glamorous an internship, the less likely it is paid," Oldman says. Students from privileged backgrounds, who already enjoy the advantages of wealth and well-connected parents, can afford to take unpaid internships working class kids can't, further enhancing their chances after an already formidable head start in life.

ABC News correspondent Cokie Roberts spoke out about the problem at a meeting of Congressional interns, none of whom get paid. "By setting up unpaid internship programs, it seems to me that without completely recognizing it, it sets up a system where you are making it ever more difficult for people who don't have economic advantages to catch up," she said.

Not only does the unpaid internship system create an economic litmus test that excludes working class students from opportunities to make valuable connections, it exploits those who seem to benefit from it. Labor Department rules governing internships prohibit employers from using interns to do work that would normally be performed by paid employees, but it belies common sense to believe that such practices aren't routine. Labor lawyer John Richard Carrigan believes that illegal internships are an open secret: "You can't [legally] bring an intern in and have him do photocopying and an endless number of menial tasks that an enthusiastic gopher would perform." Yet, he says, it's common practice.

Publishing houses use unpaid interns to edit manuscripts and make photocopies; those tasks would have to be undertaken by a paid worker if a 20-year-old gofer wasn't available. Many radio stations and music companies rely on armies of unpaid workers - er, interns. Theoretically, unpaid internships are equivalent to class at a vocational school. But in reality, the government does nothing to ensure that employers treat interns differently than temps.

The bottom line is simple: a hard day's work deserves a fair day's pay.

Unpaid internships drag down wages for everyone. And they force young men and women to choose between being used or getting left out. One hundred forty years have passed since the Emancipation Proclamation outlawed forcing human beings to work for nothing. Congress should close the slave labor loophole.

What happened to my friend Karen? She quit her prestigious job at the Times after about a year. "It was a depressing place to work," she explained as she prepared an application for medical school. I wonder how she would have felt about the $6-an-hour telemarketing job I held at the time.

Ted Rall
Ted Rall is the author of two new books, Wake Up, You're Liberal!: How We Can Take America Back From the Right and Generalissimo El Busho: Essays and Cartoons on the Bush Years.