News & Views You Can Use
Sep 22, 2004
City Pages
More Than Sprawl
BikeAthens' annual Tour de Sprawl, now in its fifth year, is co-sponsored by Athens Grow Green Coalition, and it shows. There's a lot of emphasis on building techniques for sustainable living and managing rainwater runoff, both in the lectures and in the stops on the bicycle tour itself.
"Tour de Sustainability" kicks off Wednesday, Sept. 22 with a multi-media Green Home Workshop at 7 p.m. in the "Little Kings" space On Hancock at Hull St. (the cool brick building with all the windows at the end of the Manhattan block). Dennis Creech - a founder of Atlanta's independent Southface Energy Institute - shows practical ways of making homes more energy-efficient. Now in its 26th year, Southface has gained national recognition for its workshops and conferences on energy-saving building design and its midtown Atlanta demonstration center. With luck, that lecture will be immediately followed by the premiere of a short documentary video about last year's Tour de Sprawl, shot by Andrew Permar of UGA's journalism school. The film will include historic photos of Athens streetcars and downtown scenes. It is being edited at press time but is "coming together really great," according to Brent Buice of BikeAthens.
At 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 23 in the UGA Chapel on Old Campus the Tour's keynote speaker, Walter Brown, of Green Street Properties, talks about building livable communities. Brown is an alumnus of Southface who previously renovated low- to moderate-income housing for the state government and has studied business, architecture, and community development at UGA, Georgia Tech, and Georgia State University. He is presently involved in building Glenwood Park, an intown Atlanta redevelopment project that will include public squares, homes, apartments, stores and parks as part of "a loveable, walkable neighborhood" near Zoo Atlanta. His talk, which is free of charge, focuses on "the implementation of new urbanist principles, green building techniques and stormwater management." Following Brown's talk there is a free dessert reception at 8:30 p.m. in nearby Founders' Garden adjacent to Lumpkin Street.
On Saturday morning, Sept. 25 the defining Tour de Sprawl event - a bike or bus ride, (your choice, but call to reserve a place on the bus) - gathers at College Square beginning at 8 a.m. The $20 fee includes snacks and a t-shirt. Before the Tour leaves College Square at 9 a.m., Athens-Clarke County Environmental Coordinator Dick Field gives an overview of the ACC efforts to utilize low-impact development: more sustainable building and alternative stormwater management.
The first stop is Ansonborough, a mixed-use development on Gaines School Road developed by Galis/Kimbrough, LLC. Architect Josh Koons talks about the low impact stormwater features and developer Chuck Gallis, who was "new urbanist" before new urbanism was cool, explains the overall concept of Ansonborough.
The second stop is the UGA Intramural Field, where architect Rex Gonnsen designed a parking lot bioretention area. UGA environmental design professor Alfred Dick discusses this example of low impact techniques.
At the third stop, the ACC transportation center on Pound St., UGA environmental design professor Bruce Ferguson explains the porous parking lot there and how it works. Jason Peek, of the ACC transportation and public works department talks about the county's stormwater management program.
On to the fourth stop at Sandy Creek Nature, where staff member Randy Smith explains the energy efficient features built into the Center's ENSAT building and planned for its new addition.
Since the Tour goes from downtown to Gaines School Road and back through town to Pound Street and then out to the nature center, the first leg has been shortened to cut out the Greenway and go directly out Lexington Road. The return from the nature center will be along the Greenway, though. For more info contact Jared Bailey at 338-9019, fax 613-0707, email tds@bikeathens.com.
John Huie, a bicyclist, lives in the country; Pete McCommons, a pedestrian, lives in town.
Forum Elicits Issues
District Attorney Ken Mauldin and challenger Mo Wiltshire faced off in the first debate of their campaign before an avid audience of local lawyers on Tuesday, Sept. 15. The occasion was a luncheon meeting of the Western Judicial Circuit Bar Association at Trump's in the Georgian. Local attorney Ken Kalivoda moderated the debate and read questions submitted by the audience. Kalivoda should be drafted to run nationally televised debates, and he should hold them to the bar association rules. These guys didn't want to hear any flowery opening statements. Been there, done that. Just the questions.
What emerged from the grilling is the shape of this campaign: first-term incumbent Mauldin - who ousted longtime D.A. Harry Gordon in the last election with a low-budget word of mouth and email, civic club and church contacts surprise win - is proud of his record and accomplishments, while Wiltshire thinks the public's business can be run more efficiently.
Mauldin has an impressive background for a district attorney, having served a considerable time as an assistant district attorney and as the local solicitor general (sort of a lower-courts D.A.) before being elected district attorney.
Wiltshire served as an assistant district attorney in the Blue Ridge Judicial Circuit in north Georgia after graduating from law school here and then came back to Athens to engage in the private practice of law.
He says he became interested in running for D.A. after trying a murder case in opposition to Mauldin. Wiltshire says that even though his client was acquitted, "I was not happy with what I saw."
During his tenure as district attorney, Mauldin has tried all 10 murder cases that have come into court and has gained convictions or guilty pleas in all of them except the one Wiltshire defended.
Wiltshire says Mauldin is spending too much time on the details when he should be delegating more to a staff that he trusts. Wiltshire points to a large backlog of cases awaiting disposition which, after defendants sit in jail for a year or more are pled out as lesser offenses. Wiltshire claims this is a waste of public money and an injustice to the accused.
Mauldin says he has handled the murder trials not because he doesn't trust his staff but because he believes the D.A. should "make the tough decisions."
Wiltshire says Mauldin has increased the budget of the office by too much. Mauldin says increases merely reflect the rising payroll. Wiltshire says there's too much turnover among assistant D.A.'s; Mauldin says it's tough to keep good people and natural that they move on into private practice.
And then there's "Phonegate," as Wiltshire calls it: the recording system set up at the jail which was used by prosecutors in Mauldin's office to eavesdrop on the telephone calls of prisoners at the jail. Wiltshire calls that system - which local judges have ordered dismantled - an "embarrassment and an affront to all citizens… and it's an affront to lawyers… "
Mauldin maintains that the system was used to listen to conversations for which prosecutors could have legally requested a transcript anyway.
A district attorney race is unusual in that the candidates themselves are lawyers, and lawyers must work with whoever wins. Such a race, therefore, is conducted before a jury of their peers - who talk a lot among themselves but can't afford to say much publicly.
One thing some attorneys said about Ken Mauldin when he ran last time was that he has a controlling personality and would have a hard time delegating, thus causing cases to back up. According to Wiltshire, that prophesy has come true. Mauldin says he's just conscientious about conducting the people's business. Meanwhile, Wiltshire, who can't match Mauldin's experience as a prosecutor, must convince the voters that his personality and management style will enable him, as he says, "to get the people's business done better."
Pete McCommons is editor and publisher of Flagpole.
O.K. By Our Leaders
It is illegal, in Connorsville, Wisconsin, for a man to fire a gun while his female partner is having an orgasm
Even the staunchest gun control opponents would agree, I'd hope, that this makes sense - though they'd remain as perplexed as anyone why the law was needed.
On this commonsense level, everyone would support some form of gun control. However, this kind of thinking is missing from the gun control debate. The recent expiration of the assault weapons ban illustrates the point.
On September 13, the ban expired. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert refused to bring up the resolution extending the ban. Majority Whip Tom DeLay said the it would be a waste of time. The President said he'd sign the extension if it came to his desk, but he didn't push for a vote.
Legislation by sleight of hand also affects Governor Sonny Perdue, the GBI, and our Congressional delegation.
According to OnTheIssue.com, Governor Perdue has no position on the record regarding gun control. I called his office to ask his position, but a spokesperson declined to comment. Vicki Metz, spokesperson for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, responded to my request for information on assault weapons in Georgia. She said, "We have chosen not to give any statement on the matter since this is a federal issue."
Senator Zell Miller's spokesperson told me that the Senator would not support renewing the ban. Who saw that coming?
Senator Saxby Chambliss' office gave me the following statement: "I have always been a staunch supporter of Second Amendment rights," said Chambliss. "As an avid sportsman, I believe in the right of law abiding Americans to bear arms. I support strict enforcement of established gun laws that ensure firearms are acquired by legally authorized users and protect our constitutional right to keep and bear arms."
Good to know, I guess, but not an answer to my question.
Congressman Max Burns voted yes on the bill that would prohibit suing gunmakers and sellers, and he "strongly favors the absolute right to gun ownership" (www.issues2002.org/GA/Max_Burns_HouseMatch.htm).
I'm uncertain whether "absolute right" would include the Congressman's being in favor of firing a weapon during intimate moments. For the record, I didn't ask.
Recent events will suggest the implications of our leaders' position on assault rifles in Georgia.
On March 16, 2000, H. Rap Brown (Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin) killed one Fulton County deputy sheriff and wounded another with a high-powered .232-caliber Ruger assault rifle and a 9 mm Browning pistol. The officers, Deputy Ricky Kinchen and Deputy Aldranon English, were attempting to serve a legal paper on Al-Amin. When they confronted Al-Amin, he opened fire with the assault rifle, downing both officers. He then pulled out the pistol and shot Deputy Kinchen three times as he lay in the street.
Pro-gun folks would argue that he had the gun illegally, so the issue isn't the weapon, but lax law enforcement. I'd respond that putting a product on the market means it's going to be stolen. Take it off the market, and it still may get stolen, but it will be less available for theft - and less available to criminals.
The evidence of the ban's effectiveness is available. A 1999, Justice Department study found that in 1994, the year the ban went into effect, assault weapons accounted for only 1.6 percent of the firearms used in crimes, as opposed to 4.8 percent five years before.
Still, pro-gun websites site emphasize that assault weapons are seldom the criminal's weapon of choice: they're too hard to conceal.
However, according to a report by the Violence Policy Center, between 1998 and 2001, assault weapons were responsible for deaths of 41 of the 211 officers killed in the line of duty - approximately one death in five. The stats are not yet available for subsequent years, but the issue is significant enough for law enforcement organizations all around the nation to endorse extending the ban. On group, the International Associations of Chiefs of Police (IACP) even asked to meet with the President a week before the deadline to discuss the importance of extending the ban. According to a September 7 story published in The Hill, the President blew off the IACP and their reporter as well: "The IACP is unaware of a White House response to the request, and the administration did not return calls seeking comment." (http://www.hillnews.com/news/090704/gun.aspx).
In a related September 12 story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta police Chief Richard Pennington, along with police chiefs of other metropolitan areas, pushed for a renewal of the ban. AJC journalist Rhonda Cook quotes Pennington as saying, "Young people are being killed on our streets… A lot are being killed by assault weapons. The ban limited their ability to get them."
Police associations want them banned, and according to a poll published in the Boston Globe, 68 percent of respondents wanted the ban extended. We've also seen the effect of these weapons in our own state. Why wasn't the ban extended? I'll offer two related facts.
The NRA has withheld its endorsement of George W. Bush for re-election. Thomas Oliphant, Boston Globe columnist, reported on September 9 that the NRA would endorse Bush if the ban expired. As I write, that endorsement has not taken place, but the ban only expired yesterday.
The second fact: Andrew Mollison reported in the September 9 Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the NRA has launched a $400,000-a-week TV ad buy this week that criticizes Kerry's stand on the ban and other gun issues. According to Mollison, "The ad, a half-hour infomercial that was to run first in South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Missouri and Florida starting Wednesday… [and] tells viewers that Kerry's voting record in the Senate shows that if elected president, he would try to erode gun owners' rights."
That kind of power and money can buy up a lot of sound thinking. Our leaders can wind up in bed with the NRA - a group with a casual commitment to common sense.
Sam Prestridge is a writer living in Athens.
You May Be Next
At first the enemy is foreign, alien, incomprehensible: to post-9/11 America, a nation founded by fundamentalist Calvinists, they were Afghans, Iraqis, Muslims in general. We locked them into places like Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay, and we threw away the key. Denied access to a lawyer, never charged with a crime, their names and locations hidden from family and the media, dismal treatment - including torture - was inevitable.
In a classic step in the devolution from democracy to police state, we've run out of foreigners to bomb and imprison. Our rulers have been forced to look inward, among the previously protected class of United States passport holders, for new scapegoats. Like their brethren at the naval base in Cuba, these Americans are being deprived of their most basic human rights. They are people who dare to pick up a sign and march against such Bush Administration policies as the war against Iraq.
Media accounts of massive protests against the Republican National Convention - some 500,000 people, ranging from leftists to pacifists to mainline Democrats came to New York - focused on attacks on the police and GOP delegates. "The most damaging act of violence, in fact, appeared to occur against a police officer, who was kicked as he lay on the ground," reported The New York Times. "In addition, there were the demonstrators who consistently and at times aggressively badgered delegates, telling them in unprintable words that they ought to leave Manhattan posthaste."
Intentionally ignored and on a vast scale was the shameful experience of marchers arrested by a brutal NYPD between Friday, August 27 and Thursday, September 2.
Recognizing that political demonstrations are a fact of life in New York, police and marchers used to work together to ensure that peace prevailed. As a veteran of such rallies during the Reagan years, I remember shooting the breeze with cheerful cops between chants. We even helped them move barriers. In the rare cases when jittery police demanded that protesters clear a street - typically when some official was about to pass - they gave us every opportunity to leave. If you got arrested, you were given a "desk appearance ticket" and released on your personal recognizance after a few hours.
Tensions escalated at the big anti-Iraq war demonstration in March 2003. No doubt inspired by the tough talk coming out of Washington, mounted police reared their horses to menace marchers with trampling. Cops ran through the streets pell-mell, arresting shoppers and tourists who hadn't been part of the march. New metal barricades were used to bludgeon and crush antiwar activists.
Beginning with a mass round-up of bicyclists participating in their monthly Critical Mass ride to encourage urban biking on the Friday before the convention, New York police arrested anyone they could get their hands on. They beat people who weren't resisting arrest, broke out their teeth, destroyed their personal property and confined them incommunicado under atrocious conditions for days at a time, prompting a local judge to fine the city for violating a New York rule that requires charging suspects within 24 hours or releasing them.
"The conditions of my arrest were pretty appalling," says Maria Cincotta, a 26-year-old New York teacher who was arrested on Tuesday night of convention week near Union Square. "We were given no order to disperse. Had I been asked to leave, I would have in a second." When Cincotta complained to police that her plastic handcuffs were too tight - other arrestees' hands turned blue - they replied with a boilerplate "Sorry, we can't do that."
City officials converted a disused bus depot on the Hudson River's Pier 57 into what detainees nicknamed "Little Guantánamo" for its outdoor setting and maze of pens divided by chain-link fencing. Numerous arrest victims reported being denied food and water or access to an attorney or a phone. ("Sorry, I can't do that," police said.) Children, some who happened to be walking down the street when the cops arrested everyone present, were locked up for several days. Police refused to tell their frantic parents where they were. Adding to the misery was a resinous layer of gasoline and toxic cleansers coating the floor. "Everybody was laying in filth," said Cincotta. "Nobody was sleeping. A lot of people were screaming in agony." The Times reports that "scores" of RNC detainees contracted mysterious rashes and lesions.
Prisoners were shuttled between Pier 57 and the city's central holding jail in similarly dismal conditions. Wendy Stefanelli, a 35-year-old TV hair stylist, spent several hours locked in a hot bus - the weather was humid with temperature in the high 80s - with a man whose colostomy bag had burst. "He was throwing up all over the back of the bus," she said. "The entire bus begged the officers present to please get medical attention to this man. They completely ignored us."
"My experience wasn't nearly as bad as other folks'," says Jon Goldberg, 26, of Brooklyn. "There were people roughed up who were not resisting arrest. I saw one person with bruising on his head; he said a cop had kneeled on his head. A lot of people had their cameras destroyed. One had his photos deleted except for one, a new image of a police officer's boots and his hand protruding toward the lens--showing 'the finger.'"
Some police confirmed an illegal policy of intentionally delaying the release of demonstrators until the end of the RNC. "For disorderly conduct, they don't usually hold people," said Goldberg. "There was a deliberate attempt to get people off the street." Cincotta, the teacher, was ultimately released more than 48 hours after her arrest. I asked her what charge she faced. "I don't know," she said. "I never got to see a lawyer."
Few of these Americans broke any law. Many were hapless pedestrians, not even part of a political demonstration. Go ahead, call them whiners or hippies or commies or whatever retro-Nixon-era moniker you prefer. Turn the page or click the next URL. That's what your government wants you to do, because they're fresh out of Muslims to throw into prison. Someday they'll be fresh out of liberal demonstrators too.
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.
Whose Country Is It?
This is a Big Time for America. It's not just another election, not merely about a list of issues - even though some of those issues are huge, including the deliberate downsizing of our middle class and the deadly war of lies in Iraq.
What's at stake on November 2 is the very idea of America itself - the historic idea that we might actually build a society based on our egalitarian ideals of economic fairness, social justice and equal opportunity for all. The moneyed elites - presently working through BushCheneyAshcroftRumsfeld & Company - have decided that America should no longer bother pursuing egalitarianism. They are asserting a new ethic of privilege, declaring that the role of government is to take care of the good fortunes of the few and not worry about the well-being of the many. In their view, they're the top dogs and the rest of us are just a bunch of fire hydrants.
Wielding their administrative blow-torches and legislative monkey-wrenches, they are jerry-rigging America's rules so that money and power flow uphill, out of our neighborhoods into their corporate suites and offshore bank accounts. They're seizing control of every decision that affects our lives - from wages to taxation, from what's in your dinner to what's in your daily news feed, from who goes to college to who goes to war.
They're turning our America - our democracy - into their America of plutocracy and autocracy.
As I travel around the country, I find that most people are aware that something fundamental has gone wrong, that this is not the America they thought they were born into. I recently saw an old pickup truck with a bumpersticker that asked: "Where are we going? And what am I doing in this handbasket?" People know that we're being led down some rabbit trail, off of America's true path toward egalitarianism.
I believe we're in another one of those "When-in-the-course-of-human-events" moments that Jefferson wrote about. It's a Big Time for America - time to take our country back.
Jim Hightower is the best-selling author of Let's Stop Beating Around The Bush. For more information visit jimhightower.com.
Last Week's Scorecard
Athens-Clarke County Animal Control responded to 64 calls.
7 complaints of animal cruelty
6 bite cases
4 complaints of barking dogs
7 citations for ordinance violations
62 animals impounded
53 dogs
5 cats
2 raccoons
1 squirrel
1 pigeon
22 dogs placed
9 adopted
12 reclaimed
1 turned over to another agency
ACC Animal Control press release for the week of Sept. 9 to Sept. 15.
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