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.