Its been a while

well its been a while - life doesnt allways lend me the time to sit down and get any writing in. Im at work right now, and it is very very slow. I suppose its that way everywhere these days.

Apartment Hunt!

I am fully convinced that there is no greater pain in life than moving. It is worse than giving birth, at least pregnancy is something you can prepare for ahead of time. Sure, expectant mothers will disagree, brandishing that same cross of pain and sacrifice that has been called upon since they were given the right to speak without being spoken to, but with today's drugs, I think it is really a dead issue. I have no sympathy, I will care again when some woman moves my couch and dresser across town.

If they had a pill that could eliminate the chance that I would ever have to move again, believe me it would be taken with absolute regularity, and without a peep of malcontent - I don't even care about the side effects. I smoke cigarettes.

Enough about pregnancy though, moving is the issue of the day.

I have two months left on my lease, and I am already stressing, spending my days, listlessly roaming the streets of Atlanta, finding perfect apartments that are promised to not be available in that final stretch of my search, when I will be forced to move into a $900 a month shit hole where my crack dealing neighbors will undoubtedly defecate in my mailbox every time I go to work.

I am done with this, even though I technically haven't even begun. It is odd that rent prices are soaring at the same time real estate prices have fallen through the floor. I am the type of person who likes to have things sorted out ahead of time, and this doesn't appear to be the kind of issue that the world is going to let me have sorted out ahead of time.

I understand that the property managers are not willing to hold on to the properties two months in advance, I suppose it is time to put my search on hold, as all I am succeeding in doing is torturing myself while wasting time and gas.

I'm sure it will all work out in the end, but it is just so frustrating right now.

Tornadoes in my Neighborhood

The building shook, the customers panicked, it was an interesting evening at my job. Last Friday night, tornadoes ripped through downtown Atlanta, then careened up I-20 to strike near enough to my place of employment that the windows in the condos above my job exploded, sending terrified residents into Vickery's with tears streaming from their eyes.

Then it travelled up the hill to my neighborhood, an aging East Atlanta neighborhood, one where the houses are small, and built on the cheap, with trees towering over them, their large branches looming low above the rooftops.



Thankfully, my house was spared. Many were not. I did not discover this until the next day, as there were massive power outs all over the city as well as reports of more storms heading our way. I did not think it would be in my best interests to brave the elements that night.



There were even rumors of looters in my East Atlanta neighborhood, although I am skeptical as to the validity of these statements. There are a lot of people who think any roaming band of teenagers are out looting, when there is a legitimate case to be made for the idea that people were simply curious to investigate the damage that had been caused bu the storm.



The neighborhood is still in shambles, but we have power which is more than I can say for some of my friends, who are not expected to have power for several more days. All in all, the city has returned to normal, and the clean up process is moving along very quickly.



I still haven't been to the Cotton Mill Lofts, a huge loft complex close to my home that sustained a direct hit by the tornado.

It is amazing that no-one was killed that night. Especially in the lofts, or by the Dome, which was reportedly still full of fans who would have otherwise been piling out of the building at the time of the storm had it not been for the fact that one of the games had gone into overtime.

Back to School

It is time for me to do the unthinkable. I am actually returning to school. For the greater portion of my two year, unsuccessful job hunt, i had been staunchly against the idea of going back to school. I was positive that a B.A. in journalism would be enough to procure a nice job for myself.

Maybe it would have been, maybe my interview skills aren't that good. I know i have progressed by leaps and bounds since i started my job hunt. Ultimately however, i have found myself constantly applying and subsequently being rejected from jobs i am not even honestly interested in working. This kind of experience causes a man to start thinking about the future again.

I need to learn a trade, and i have chosen one. To be honest i always wanted to be a teacher, before i decided i should toss my hat into the journalism ring.

Hopefully I can get into the GSU school of education. I don't think it should be that difficult for me, it will just take some hard work, and that is exactly what I plan to give.

I found a lot of inspiration while watching my room-mates journey through the Emory college of medicine in order to become a nurse. There is a shortage of nurses, and he should basically walk onto a nice career once he is graduated. He is going to see an immediate return on all of his hard work.

I am very excited to be entering this new phase of my life. It is one that I think will work out very well for me in several different ways. The simple mental stimulation that one acquires in school has become attractive to me again.

I think going to get an advanced degree is the kind of thing a person must be truly inspired to do. I intend to take out student loans as opposed to working a job, granted the thought of massive debt is not the most attractive to me, but I think I will allow me a much more concise experience in graduate school. I want to glean every morsel of knowledge and expertise that can be offered to a person with an advanced degree.

This time I am really going to to this correctly.

Cohiba Time?

I’ve had a Cuban cigar before. It was wholly unremarkable. It was a Cohiba. I had to go to Mexico to get it, and I want another one. I am going to assume that my lack of enthusiasm about the forbidden tobacco product was a result of my ignorance in dealings with cigars. I can tell you a lot about red wine, but when it comes to cigars, I am a bit of a peon.

Nonetheless, I want another one, primarily because they are just so damn complicated to attain. I think all of this could change soon, now that Fidel has gone and kicked the administrative bucket just shy of the half century mark.

I’m going to need an education before this goes down though. It is my firm belief that education enhances all of life’s pleasures. At this point, it is the difficulty that one must endure in order to acquire one of the coveted Cuban cigars that fuels my lust for the carcinogenic wad of dried plant life. If this hurdle is removed before I have an understanding of what characteristics typify a good cigar, smoking a Cuban would simply be a waste of my time, health, and cologne.

Raul, Raul, Raul, what are you going to do? They say he is more of a pragmatist than Fidel. That’s what they say, but I think one probably needs to be pretty politically pragmatic to survive the pressure placed on his nation by ten consecutive American administrations, not to mention countless alleged assassination attempts by a little gaggle of folks known as the CIA.



Once they set their sights on him, Saddam only survived three administrations. Apparently he was not as pragmatic as Fidel. They say Raul is more pragmatic than Fidel, America likes pragmatism in its enemies. It seems to increase their longevity.

Will the Cuban revolutionary relics have that same gusto without their long winded luminary? Will they have that same nuclear bravado that led them to decide it was a good idea to point Atomic bombs at millions of elderly Americans living in Miami? I sure hope not. Another snafu like that would crush my soot filled dreams for certain.

Atlanta Beltline Health Impact Assessment

First of all, we have to applaud the City of Atlanta for mustering the foresight to even bother with a Health Impact Assessment. For a city where insightful funding and conscientious planning for any public projects are about as tangible as the bigfoot, it is a huge step forward that Georgia Tech's Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development managed to team up with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the CDC to conduct one of the United States first HIA's.

Let me begin by explaining what the purpose of an HIA is. HIA's are reports that are beginning to create new relationships and strings of dialogue between public health experts and city planners. They seek to understand the relationship that new projects will have with the citizens of a city in terms of their health and quality of life.

According to the HIA report dealing with the proposed Beltline project in Atlanta, the Beltline would greatly increase the health and quality of life of the citizens of Atlanta. It would do this by enhancing air quality and increasing access to parks and healthy foods for many of Atlanta’s residents who rely on public transportation, among other things. The Beltline will also add over 1200 acres of parks and trails for the people of Atlanta.

All of this good however, may not be seen by the current generation of Beltline supporters, as the Beltway funding plan is operating on a 25 year timeframe. This is far too long for the city to take to build a project that could do so much good for the people of Atlanta.

Make no mistake, attention spans are very short in Atlanta politics, if you need evidence of this, one needs to go no further than to look into the all but forgotten plans for the city to help build a new world-class symphony center for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. When it comes to large scale public projects in this city, it seems that the attention spans of our legislatures and officials directly coincide with the election campaign cycle.

The attention span of the people is not significantly better either. If, in say 10 or 15 years, the people can still not see the full benefits of the Beltline, will they still be voting for the candidate who is pledging to continue to spend their tax money on a project that has, as of yet yielded little return for their investment? This is Doubtful. It should also be taken into serious consideration that Atlanta is a rapidly growing city, and 25 years from now, there may be obstacles to the creation of many of the parks and green spaces that simply cannot be removed.

Hopefully, the recommendations offered in the report will be taken seriously, and the officials and city planners involved with the creation of the Beltline will implement these very recommendations. There is a very real possibility that the existence of this report is in fact a symptom of a cultural sea change in the city, where ideals like health and quality of life will be taken more seriously in the future planning of a city that is rapidly growing and in need of many of the amenities that the Beltline can provide.

The Wayward Satellite

Now this is an interesting story. The Pentagon is planning to shoot an American "secret spy satellite" out of the heavens.

The rational that has been offered up to the public is that the satellite is filled with a fuel known as "hydrazine" which can cause injury or death to humans who may be exposed to it. There are also obvious concerns related to the fact that this is indeed a spy satellite. It may well carry with it sensitive information and/or technology.

Since the beginning of space exploration, thousands of man made objects have fallen from the heavens, including the 78 ton Skylab space station. Never before has the Pentagon decided that any of these objects warranted the use of a missile to destroy.

There are many factors to include when pondering the significance of the way this satellite is being treated by the government. First of all, the likelihood of the object landing in or around any population centers is negligible. There are also several international ramifications involved with the shooting down of man made space objects.

It was just last year when the Chinese shot down one of their own satellites, to heavy international critisism. This act was seen as a show of force. They were effectively demonstrating to the United States their ability to shoot down not only their own, but the satellites of other nations as well. No other nation so heavily relies on satellite power as the United States.

The entire American military war machine is guided by satellites. Therefore, a "near-peer" military force such as Russia or China could "poke out the eyes" of the American military apparatus by removing satellites from the sky. The Chinese have also been known to routinely point lasers at American satellites, these lasers often time are powerful enough to blind the satellites.

There are considerations with the logistics of destroying a man made space vehicle in orbit as well. The pieces of the satellite can enter orbit, and cause a debris field that could very possibly cause damage to other satellites. This was seen in the wake of the Chinese satellite destruction, which now accounts for 29% of the man-made space debris that is currently in orbit.

It is very possible that the loss of this American space satellite has provided for the Pentagon a convenient excuse for a retaliatory display of American military prowess in the wake of the Chinese satellite controversy. It is also possible that this satellite was efectively "blinded" by another military force which was not comfortable with the intended purposes of this satellite, which reportedly utilizes some very powerful spy technology. Whatever the case, this satellite is being treated with a level of attention that has not been seen before in regards to man-made objects falling out of orbit.

The High

It was time for me to do a little urban exploring. Considering that my current workday does not begin until later in the afternoon, my schedule lends itself to these kinds of day trips.

I started out on the MARTA train. Most people hate riding MARTA, and while its inadequacies as a mass transit system bother me as well, I cannot deny that I always find a certain level of enjoyment while warming my cheeks on its plastic seats. I had a camera, an iPod, my new headphones (which are simply exquisite) and a plan to get to the High Museum for a day of culture, all before work.

If the French can muster the decency to remove "their" national treasures from the Louvre and allow us the ability to give audience to these ancient artifacts in person, it is the least we can do to take advantage of the opportunity. Both the "Eye of Josephine" and "Ancient World" exhibitions were quite interesting. The sheer age of some of these artifacts was simply awe inspiring. Some even went so far back as to be relics of ancient Sumerian culture.

here is a picture of wooden sculpture of the crucifixion that caught my eye. (This piece was not associated with the Louvre exhibit)

I was a little worried about shooting pictures of the artwork, and tried to keep it to a minimum. I’m not so sure that it is the sort of thing that is necessarily encouraged in the museum world. Also, I wonder if it defeats the purpose of photography as an art if one is photographing someone else’s artwork.

Finally I found the photography exhibit, nestled in the basement next to the Yoruba art exhibit.

These were my two favorite exhibits in the museum. I read a quote about the Yoruba art that I found quite intriguing. It was that the Yoruba made all of their art to also be functional, for example, if one were to make a chair as art, it would have more value if it was in fact functional, not unlike the way a strong character increases the physical appeal of an individual.

The photographic exhibit, "Street Life: American Photographs from the 1960's and 1970's" was the most interesting exhibit I saw. This fascinating exhibit explores the worlds of biker gangs, women in the streets, and carnival strippers. Here is an example of one of the photos that I really liked.

Sometimes it is easy to forget that I live in a major city, with art and culture and mass transit. It can be so easy to stay between home and work, or the same old haunts we have all spent so much time in. it is nice to go out and do something different.

The Unsinkable Ship?

It is becoming clearer and clearer that the Clinton presidential campaign, once seen as an unsinkable ship in the democratic presidential race, is in serious trouble.

Senator Clinton has been the national front-runner for the democratic nomination since the very moment her hat was tossed into the ring. Many assumed that her namesake alone was enough to usher her into the pages of history as the first female president of the United States.

Flags were waved, babies were kissed, and everyone involved was generally confident that her maiden voyage from New York to Washington would go just as planned. Every detail was tallied, counted, and polled. Every step in her route was meticulously plotted, every aspect carefully considered. In all of this certainty, and with all of the arrogance of the captain of an invincible ship, one detail was forgotten, not only by the Clinton campaign, but by the American public at large.

That detail was the fact that this journey would be one through a landscape that is peppered with political icebergs.

Political icebergs like Iowa. A problem, but not an insurmountable one. Water was bailed, and a New Hampshire victory seemed to plug all of the leaks and holes there were allowing America's doubt to seep through the thick steel walls.

Then yet another, much larger iceberg was spotted. This new challenge became the catalyst for several perceived mis-steps by the campaign. These mis-steps, framed as racism by opposing campaigns and media alike, stripped the Clinton campaign of the black vote that it had been expected to carry. The nervous eyes of her campaign managers began to dip towards the life boat mechanisms as the Clinton campaign was dealt an ominous loss in South Carolina.

Clinton was soundly defeated in South Carolina, by an adversary with an undoubtable passion and public speaking ability. An opponent who had galvanized several sectors of the voting populace that had never made their voices heard in his support. The status-quo is reeling from the force of these previously disregarded sectors of the voting public.

As for the Clinton campaign, it sails on, its radio apprehensively squawking for support amongst the elite voices of its party. Only now it sails with a little less certainty, and a little less bravado, and a new inclination towards negative tactics that may well be the final breach in the hull of the Clinton Campaign.

The Aquarium

Today I finally made it to the Georgia Aquarium. It was a pretty amazing display of underwater wildlife. This is especially true being that it is so far from any body of water that is worthy of note. The closest thing we have in the Atlanta area is Lake Lanier, which is noteworthy primarily for the fact that it is rapidly disappearing.

The Beluga whales stole the show, they resided in their own section of the aquarium as opposed to the famed whale sharks who were mixed in with what seemed like an entire ecosystem's worth of species. The whale shark display was breathtaking, but did not allow for the same viewing experience as the beluga exhibit.

The overall layout of the aquarium was excellent as well. I have visited both the Chattanooga aquarium and the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, and neither had the appeal of the Georgia Aquarium.

The Shedd Aquarium does have the dolphin exhibit, which was amazing. Check out this shot of the dolphins in the air.

The aquarium is such a useful tool for the schools not only in Atlanta, but throughout the South. The school systems are in serious trouble here in a lot of places. Georgia is ranked 49th nationally, and anything that can help get the children interested in learning is undoubtedly an asset to the state.

This is a picture I took that I really liked, so im adding it as well, check this one out...

Killer Marine Scandal May Affect Political Dialogue.

The case of Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean and the alleged beating of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach to death may have ramifications that extend their arms beyond the arena of criminal law and morbid fascination. It may even have an effect on the dialogue of our current political candidates.

The issue of immigration, illegal or otherwise, has been at the forefront of national attention for some time now. It is more than a national conversation weighing the merits of the possible solutions. It is a political football. The issue has, however, lost traction among the talking points of the candidates for president, on both sides.

There is a vested interest in the media portrayals of Hispanic immigrants. Immigrants are often shown as undocumented, unknown criminals from another country who have relocated to the United States and usurped our national resources. They are also portrayed as hard-working people who have come here to find a better life for themselves and for their families. Every single media portrayal of immigrants effects national opinion, and therefore political opinion pertaining to the issue of illegal immigration.

Laurean is in fact a Mexican national, not an illegal immigrant like so many others who have been seen in the news lately for various crimes against American citizens. It cannot be ignored that he is from Guadalajara and many in the media are postulating that he may have already escaped to Mexico where he has a strong support network. In Mexico Laurean has family. In Mexico Laurean has friends. In Mexico Laurean may never be forced to face the consequences of his alleged actions.

The possibility of a high profile escape from the U.S. to Mexico, by a person who allegedly raped, murdered, and then burned the body of an attractive, pregnant white woman may once again force the issues of border security and illegal immigration to the forefront of the political arena. Even as this case has no technical connection to the debate over illegal immigration and border security.