Downtown Atlanta drugs...

Channel 46 had a headline news story about a woman who has to walk past street-crack-smoking-junkies in order to walk her dog. The property value of her condo, the neighbors fears, the open drug traffic on the street were major parts of the news story. It was a case of "scary situation" not of "here is what the city is doing to fix it," kind of reporting (even the news guy was a little freaked out to be down there at 10pm on the street). Ahhhh, but that was immediately followed by a report on whether or not to outlaw baggy pants, the Braves triple A team moving to Atlanta from Virginia, and a story on Florida plastic surgery problems. I swear, if Dagmar hadn't have come to the rescue with her Raquel Welch weather, I wouldn't have lasted another minute watching the idiot news. Is there no one at channel 46 who pays attention and grades how serious and concerned citizens need to be about what is happening in the city? How does pant length, baseball or elective surgery rate to the story of the street crackheads downtown? And, really, if anyone cared to actually think about baggy pants, they are a woman's best friend. Any guy wearing them has handicapped himself because he must use one hand to hold them up, he can't run as fast, he can't possibly attack while in such a state. Why would women complain? I love them, show me more!!! I have two good arms and two good legs to use in my defense whereas Iwould be up against a one armed bandit. I just wanted to spout off about the news because the only decent news in all of Atlanta is on channel 2.

Racism is...

The dictionary defines racism as "the notion that one's own ethnic stock is superior." How it is manifested varies, by word and deed. Most "white" people are not part of the Klan and do not believe in "white power" or "white superiority." They become guilty of racism if and when they are blamed for having privileges. Therefore, it is the act of another, being blamed by someone else, that white people become "guilty white people." In a very personal way, I become aware of the fact, from what someone says or does, I become aware of the fact that I am not you, most specifically, I am not black. That is precisely when I become a white person, when you have made me one. I always find that moment offensive. I also find your racism in my face your problem. I don't take it home with me. I don't spend time with it. Your racism is your problem, but you'd better believe, the minute you make me feel "I'm not you, solely based on race," is the minute I recognize you as what you are, racist.

National Weather Conspiracy

There was an f4 tornado last week which swept across the northern mountains of Arkansas and demolished a path 123 miles long. The weather people are all about the floods. The people in Arkansas went without power for a week and without phone for 4 days. Atlanta did get hit with a tornado. It didn't touch down, true, but it did touch the roofs of buildings and swipe city buildings about 50 feet up. But the truth is that north Georgia has had 3 tornadoes in the space of a week without the alarms going off. I had always been told that inner cities have a special atmosphere due to the amount of concrete, there is a heat layer that makes the ground hotter than surrounding land. It was because of this special atmosphere that a tornado couldn't or wouldn't ever hit a downtown area. Now we are seeing that change, although it did not actually hit the ground, the fact that a tornado could and did devastate an inner city is incredible. That our weather is changing is nothing new. The idea of la Nina or El nino years stopped people from freaking out about it changing 10 years ago...if we can name it, the phenomena isn't scary. Now that the intensity is increasing, it seems that the weather simply isn't being reported nationally, but locally. Without the warnings, without the big national picture, concerned only with local events, there seems to be a conspiracy to control the information and focus of the information so the public won't realize how much and how badly our weather is out of whack.

Responsible people...

Responsible people would demand polyurethane tires which never wear out, never go flat and absolutely never blow up and kill other drivers on the highway. The tire industry would colapse but is that a reason to continue to waste a natural non-renewable resourse?

The Chinese are holding us up!

In the 1970's we made a deal with the Saudi's - arms for fuel. It then became a race between the U.S. economy and the soviet to see which failed first. It turns out that we beat the Russians. Yeah! Our economic collapse was delayed because the west could invest in the east, bring them into the 21st century, great customers. Now, the Chinese have entered the world economic picture and it turns out that they have been holding up our economy. We don't have anything to sell them in return. They have been buying shares in our businesses and keeping them afloat. In order to be their customers, we use credit. Well, things are about to get worse for us financially, rather then better...


The economy is about to turn south for the auto industry. The Chinese are going to start selling cars in the U.S. later this year and early next year. It matters because we have 4 or 5 auto manufacturers, suffering to sell fuel inefficient vehicles. The chinese have over 500 auto manufacturers. That's right, I said over 500. The chinese have 2 billion people. USA has 300 million. In the State-of-the-Union address last year President Bush said that as a nation we need to have a GOAL of graduating 100,000 math and science majors. Last year the Chinese graduated 325,000 engineers. That bubble isn't a goal and it isn't "math and science" it is in fact just engineers. AND THEY ARE ALL WORKING!!! As for the economic race - the US can not compete, we can't even measure up at the starting line. The future is not just out-sourcing jobs to mexico, we are going to become mexico. This madness of consumerism not only must stop, we must pay our bills. If we default, the consequence will be the fall of America. If we get a grip on our "instant gratification" problem and work on paying ourselves out of debt, we could create a future of economic prosperity for ourselves and our progeny. It is a choice. The fact that our leaders are in denial and don't even want to recognize the direness of our economic situation is not a plan to address this issue. If we get responsible, through hard work, we could make a better world. It is a choice.