Chamblee54

Little Green Footballs tells the story of a man who claimed to have the “smoking gun” on global warming. The only trouble was, he forgot to read the last line of the report. “Our results provide direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth’s greenhouse effect that is consistent with concerns over radiative forcing of climate.”
Maybe it is rhetoric that is warming the air, not CO2. After the release of the stolen emails at UEA ( aka climategate), a newspaper in England printed this “Until Climategate, we “Sceptics” were considered freaks – almost as bad as Holocaust deniers – beyond the pale of reasonable balanced discussion. Suddenly we’re the norm. Climategate has finally given us the chance to express openly what many of us secretly felt all along:
AGW is about raising taxes; increasing state control; about a few canny hucksters who’ve leapt on the bandwagon fleecing us rotten with their taxpayer subsidised windfarms and their carbon-trading; about the sour, anti-capitalist impulses of sandal-wearing vegans and lapsed Communists who loathe the idea of freedom and a functioning market economy.
We know it’s all a crock and we’re not going to take it. This is our Berlin Wall moment! They can’t stop us now!”
There is a saying that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. This seems to be the case when it comes to climate science. Many people know just enough to make a good sounding argument, which will convince people who want to agree.
A few years ago, there was an academic paper titled “Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments”. The authors were Justin Kruger and David Dunning, who at the time worked at Cornell University. The Dunning-Kruger effect is named for them.
When you learn about a subject, you begin to see how much there is to know. One measure of how much you know, is how much you don’t know. An expert on a subject will be humbled by the amount of information that he has to learn, and rate his capabilities more modestly than someone who is lower on the knowledge scale. On the other hand, many people who watch a tv show or read a magazine article consider themselves experts, and rate their capabilities higher than they should.
In our culture, self esteem is considered a good thing. To express doubt or ask questions is to express weakness. We have lots of people who believe in themselves, and their belief in themselves is based on having belief in themselves. It goes round and round, and the train seldom stops to let true knowledge on. It is a lot easier to listen to some self improvement tapes about believing in yourself, than it is to attend classes and read books.
The dominant religion in our culture is Jesus Worship, a religion of beliefs and not practices. All you have to do to be a Christian is have the right beliefs. You don’t have to do anything, you just have to believe. It is a short step from a beliefs only religion to the cult of believing in yourself when you don’t know very much.
The Dunning Kruger effect is a good fit for modern America, and the debate over carbon pollution. People don’t want to give up the comfort of our high energy use lifestyle. When some psuedo scientist tells them they don’t have to, they are ready to believe. You can fool a lot of people when they want to be fooled. Pictures are from ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

A lady called Jaimes has a local blog, and today she decided to write something uplifting. She chose as a subject a photo essay by Life magazine about “Life with Mother“. The Life feature she almost wrote about was “Famous Literary Drunks and Addicts“. PG thinks there is too much uplift in the world already, and decided to write about the literary boozers.
Writing can be a lonely affair, with long nights spent wringing words out of the soul. Of course, the more social arts of theatre and music produce a lot of people who cannot control their substances. (Is there anything like the phrase “controlled substances”?) Getting back to the wordsmith, writing and getting high have always gone together, and not always for the better.
There are 43 names on this list. To peruse the Life feature, you have to click once for every new name, which is a lot of work. You get to see a picture of each one, but, with a few exceptions, these guys are fugly. Alcohol, heroin, indoor desk work, and the inevitable cigarettes do not lead to pretty faces. Anne Sexton was a model before a suicide poet, and F.Scott Fitzgerald did photograph well. To some, Charles Bukowski is a sex symbol. If you feel like working the mouse and seeing all the people, that is your choice.
Many of the names on this list are obvious. Ernest Hemingway, Tennesee Williams, and F.Scott Fitzgerald are noted fans of altered consciousness. Dashiell Hammet lived for 30 plus years with Lillian Hellman, which might be a good reason to drink. And Truman Capote, among other things, did not suffer false modesty. “I’m an alcoholic. I’m a drug addict. I’m homosexual. I’m a genius.”
The beatnik/hippie/punk continuum is well represented. William S. Burroughs gave lie to the saying that there are no old junkies. ( A surprising number here lived to a ripe old age.) Richard Brautigan and Hunter S. Thompson just would not be themselves in a twelve step program. And Jack Kerouac was staying with Neal Cassidy, and wife, while working on his early novels. Cassidy thought Kerouac smoked too much marijuana.
The list is weighted heavily towards white males. Only six women made the list, and James Baldwin is the only person of color. Ayn Rand was a bit of a surprise…the lady, who copped her pen name from a typewriter, was a speed fan. Another surprise was Stephen King. The horror meister is a cocaine fan, and is one of the few authors that can afford a hobby like that.
Perhaps the best comment comes from Edna St. Vincent Millay .”My candle burns at both ends / It will not last the night / But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends / It gives a lovely light!”

PG and Uzi like to go walking on sunday afternoon, followed by dinner. With sunshine and warm(er) temperatures, it was legally required to get out on the 21st. After much deliberation, the call was made to go to Little Five Points.
Uzi recently got a book of discount dining coupons. On the ride into town, he was going through the book, considering what the options were. Before the discount book, dinner was a trap of duality, with the S&S cafeteria competing with Piccadilly for culinary attention. When a parking spot appeared, as if by magic, the book was left in the car.
Little five points is getting close to oldie status. The Marietta tourists, the cigarette puffing fifteen year olds, the high hat wearing blacks selling incense…it may as well be preserved in amber. PG noted a store with the melodic name “hookah hook up”, and a retail must see was uncovered. The HHU was another patchouli scented time trap, with signs saying that products were for legal use only. ” Is there anything you want to know about the products? “ “Nothing that I can say out loud”.
Going south on Moreland, past the chubby decker palace and the yards of patio potatoes, there stood the Tijuana Garage. The walkers went inside, looked at the menu, and decided this would be a good move for dinner. Alas, when they got back to the car, the coupon was not good on weekends. The large print giveth and the small print taketh away. The decision was made to go to Buckhead, and eat mexican at the Rio Grande eating facility.
What seemed like three hours later, PG was taking Uzi back to his car to go home. The restaurant had an table waiting inside, and a long wait for service. Doesn’t waiter imply that he is waiting on you, and not the other way around? When the food did appear an eternity later, Uzi’s order was wrong, and PG couldn’t remember what he had ordered. By this time the obnoxious drunks were moving in off the patio, bringing their noise with them. Maybe there is a reason this place has a half off coupon that is honored on weekends.

There was sunny weather for the beltline walk Saturday February 20. After a few weeks of cold and snow, the warmer temperatures were appreciated. Jackets stayed in cars, and sun protection was in force. PG suspects his neck got a bit redder.
The journey started on Monroe, across from Piedmont Park. The Virginia Avenue bridge served as an acoustic arena, for the inevitable announcements. There were piles of railroad ties in abundance, which served as impromptu platforms. Today’s walk was themed for Art on the Beltway. There are plans for static images, as well as performance spaces for the old rail corridor.
PG had done this walk in November, before the majority of the rail ties had been taken up. The walk was a bit smoother then, but taking up the ties is an important step in building a path. The famed magnolia tree at Ponce de Leon Park was still there, as was the notorious bridge over Ponce.
Before getting to Ponce, the beltline goes in back of the shopping center, across from Grady Stadium. There are some great views of Midtown hi rises there, with a foreground of rooftop air conditioning units. Behind the center were a few overgrown weed trees, with a bible resting on a tree stump. It was opened to 2 Chronicles 6:9.
PG wondered how many in the crowd today was around when Richards was in the shopping center space. Richards was in a rambling nightclub building, which had been open under several names before Rock and Roll arrived in 1973. When Richards closed ( after selling tickets to see BB King on New Years Eve, only to greet ticket holders with locked doors) the building was going to open as the Cabaret After Dark. A competing clubowner (allegedly) set fire to the building the night before it opened. The shopping center followed a few years later.
On the other side of North Avenue, Midtown gives way to the Old Fourth Ward. A 14 acre park is under construction between North Avenue and Ralph McGill Boulevard. A designer ( who is not from the south) climbed on some railroad ties to give a talk about the park.
Continuing south, there is a skater park, which was in use today. A skater waved at PG, only using one finger. The Freedom Parkway was next, with a collection of graffiti that changes every time it is seen. The original plan was to stop at a restaurant near there, but there was a live band and a crowd of people. The porto potties were available, though, which was a welcome facility for some of the hikers.
Moving down, past the end of Auburn Avenue, the walk went under the bridge at Edgewood. Railroad riders had been camping under the bridge in November, but were no where to be seen today. Soon, the walk moved onto the sidewalks of Dekalb Avenue, through the Krog tunnel and past Cabbagetown. The last part of the hike was over rail ties, not yet removed. This was the part between Wylie Street and Memorial Drive. It came out by an old rail depot, now a failed restaurant site. There were cars waiting there to take people back to the start of the trail.
Color pictures are by PG. B&W pictures are from ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.

Last November, PG went on a beltline walk that ended near Edgewood Avenue. After the walk, a car was parked nearby, for the trip to the start of the walk. The car was parked next to a vacant lot, that was being cleaned up by a group of volunteers. The plan was to make a community garden called “Artichoke Bliss” on the land.
The word at the time was that the land was owned by Ebenezer Baptist Church. The historic church was the home pulpit of Martin Luther King Sr. and Jr. The church was supposed to be happy with the work on the vacant lot.
It is now February, and the lot has received a lot of attention. Volunteers have spent lots of time cleaning it up, planting trees, and building paths. And now, an organization called Intergenerational Resource Center has claimed ownership of the land. IRC wants to put a parking lot in the space.
It is too early to see how this will turn out. IRC appears to be politically connected. If push comes to shove, IRC would appear to have the advantage.
A service called “Kudzu” rates businesses and services. This is what they say about IRC.
“This is a multi-racial, multi-generational haven for adults with mental and physical disabilities. The staff really care about the clients, and the clients care about each other. It is a Christian facility, so might not be for those of other persuasions.”
The address of IRC is 444 Edgewood Avenue. This is an office building at the corner of Edgewood and Boulevard.
PG is sad about what is happening, but not surprised.
AB is in the heart of the historic “Sweet Auburn” district. This was the business home of the Atlanta Black community, in the days before integration. A look at the friends box on the AB facebook page shows one African American person, out of 182. People coming in to a neighborhood to do good deeds are not always welcome.

“A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal” This tidbit is attributed to Oscar Wilde.There is no record who he stole it from.
He could be talking about modern times in Georgia. Yesterday, the honest to a fault person was Matthew Cardinale. Today, it is Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine. The person known at “Ox” is currently running for Governor of Georgia.
For some reason, the state Insurance Commissioner is elected in Georgia. There is a proposal to make the Insurance Commissioner an appointed position. Some of the Ox antics seem to “insure” that he is the last person elected to this position.
In 1993, Ox spoke at a meeting of auto insurance people. He said, regarding bribes campaign contributions, “I’m the incumbent. You all are going to give me money because you’re afraid not to,” .
There is a sincere report from Kenya. It seems like the lions are starving, and zebras are being rounded up to feed to them. There might be a shortage of Christians to feed to the lions.
Pictures are from ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.HT to the AJC.

There is an amusing little media incident in Atlanta. A website, the Atlanta Progressive News, fired a writer, and actually admitted it was because he was not biased.
The writer is named Jonathan Springston. The editor/hatchet man is Matthew Cardinale. It seems that APN is in the middle of a (much needed) redesign, and had to make some tough decisions. A money quote: “At a very fundamental, core level, Springston did not share our vision for a news publication with a progressive perspective. He held on to the notion that there was an objective reality that could be reported objectively, despite the fact that that was not our editorial policy at Atlanta Progressive News. It just wasn’t the right fit.”
APN sees itself as providing “Progressive News”. This is defined as “Progressive news is news that brings us closer to universal health care, living wages, affordable housing, peace, a healthy environment, and voting systems we can trust.” To APN all media is biased, and they are merely honest about their choices.
PG had only looked at APN once before. There was a link to it after the raid on the Eagle. PG was amazed at what he saw…a few ads, and a list of articles. The site has zero visual appeal, whatever the quality of it’s writing. ( Somehow the word Journalism does not seem appropriate.) Regarding internet news outlets in Atlanta, the supply towers over the demand. Maybe the re invention of the site will make it readable.
The comments thread at the CL piece is almost as entertaining as the email statement. Someone called APNE chimes in, saying that he has masters degrees in sociology and public administration. And there is a ring of objective truth to this… “the only reason Creative Loafing is in existence today after the bankruptcy is to sell enough advertising so that Atalaya can make their money back. Informing people and enhancing democracy is for CL’s owners a coincidental or secondary function, at least in comparison to the revenue from the weekly plastic surgery advertising on page 2.”
There are two more comments to quote here, before the “get a life” alarm goes off. Another William writes “As an actual San Francisco liberal, people like Cardinale make me crazy: unwilling to do the hard work of understanding reality, they base their actions purely on their vaporous ideals, dooming themselves to being perpetually ineffective. And dooming the people they could actually help to suffer further. One might almost think they’re in it for feelings of righteousness, rather than any actual result.”
And, it wouldn’t be Atlanta without the next comment. Reality Check opines “Cardinale should go back to Louisiana. He’s been nothing but a pompous and arrogant prick since he settled in Atlanta. He’s nothing more than a know-it-all transplant. As the old saying goes in Atlanta, “Delta is ready when you are.” Perhaps in your case Cardinale, Greyhound might better suit your style or lack thereof.”
HT to ATLmalcontent. This matter has been featured at Fark.

PG finished a book, Peachtree Street-Atlanta. The author is William Bailey Williford, and it was published by the University of Georgia Press in 1962. PG found this at the Chamblee library, and this is probably the best way to find this book today.
How this road got the name Peachtree is a good question. Most peaches grow south of the fall line. The story goes that there was a Creek Indian village called Standing Peachtree, located where Peachtree Creek runs into the Chattahoochee. During the war of 1812 Fort Peachtree was built on this site.
There was a trail that ran from Buckhead to an intersection with the Sandtown Trail, at what is now Five Points. A short distance south of this intersection was a settlement known as White Hall. For many years, Peachtree Street south of Five Points was known as Whitehall Road. At some point in the last thirty years, a decision was made to change Whitehall to Peachtree. It did not help the rundown condition of Whitehall Street.
In 1835 Governor Wilson Lumpkin decided that Georgia should build a Railroad that would be centered near the junction of Peachtree Trail and Sandtown Trail. The new town was named “Marthasville”, after the youngest daughter of the Governor. Martha Lumpkin is a resident of Oakland Cemetery today.
The village was soon renamed Atlanta, which was a feminine form of Atlantic. Houses, churches, and businesses were soon built on Peachtree Road. In 1856, Richard Peters built a flour mill. To insure a steady supply of firewood, he bought four hundred acres of land, for five dollars an acre. The land was between Eighth Street, North Avenue, Argonne Avenue, and Atlantic Drive.
Another pioneer citizen with a large landholding was George Washington (Wash) Collier. Mr. Collier bought 202 acres for $150 in 1847. The land was between West Peachtree, Fourteenth Street, Piedmont Road, Montgomery Ferry Road, and the Rhodes Center. Much of the land was used for the development of Ansley Park.

In 1854, Atlanta entertained, for the first time, a man who had been President. On May 2, Millard Fillmore arrived from Augusta on a private rail car.
There was some unpleasantness in 1864, which we will not concern ourselves with.
In 1866, there was a shocking murder. John Plaster was found dead, in an area known as “tight squeeze”. This was an area of shanties, at the present location of Crescent Avenue and Tenth Street. A hundred years later, this was near “the strip”, Atlanta’s hippie district, which was also called “Tight Squeeze”.
As the nineteenth century rolled along, many mansions were built on Peachtree Street. The road was paved, and streetcars ran up and down. Automobiles came, and came, and came. An expressway was built in the 1950’s, and quickly became obsolete. One by one, the mansions were torn down and replaced with businesses and churches.
The book was written in 1962, when the party was just getting started. The High Museum was known then as the Atlanta Art Association. In June of 1962, a plane full of prominent Atlanta residents crashed in Paris, killing all on board. As a memorial to those people, the Memorial Arts Center on Peachtree, at Fifteenth Street, was built.
Another phenomenon which is not explained by the book is the custom of naming everything here Peachtree. There are countless streets and institutions named for a fruit tree that likes warmer climates. Atlanta has a one street skyline, that stretches from Five Points to Peachtree Dunwoody Road, almost at the city limits. PG lives a quarter mile off Peachtree, in Dekalb County, and has no idea why Peachtree is a magic word.
Pictures are from the ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

A woman and man went to the hospital for the delivery of their first child. The doctor mentioned that they were doing some experimental work with pain and wondered if they may be interested.
The man who was always into something new answered, “Sure.”
“I have invented a machine that transfers the pain from the mother of the baby to the father”. The wife was a little skeptical but the guy was all in. He actually didn’t think childbirth was as painful as most women claimed. The doctor hooked the woman up
“I will set the pain level at 5%. Most men can’t stand more then 10%. Any thing past that and they tend to pass out.”
The young man trying to impress his wife said, “Go ahead and start me at 10% Doc. I can handle it.” The doctor dialed it to 10%. The man didn’t flinch. He was so amazed that he dialed it to 20%, “How about that young man?” The man answered, “Nothing to it dial it on up.”
The woman thought this was a great idea also. She was only feeling pressure and none of the pain everyone had warned her about.
The doctor kept dialing the pain level to he had reached 80%. The man smiled and said “Real men can take a little pain. Give me all of it”.
“ Honey I told you it wasn’t any thing to having a baby.” The woman was very relaxed and delivered the baby without a grunt.
Two hours later the doctor was so flabbergasted that he told the happy couple to go home and pick their baby up first thing the next day.
Now I remind you of line 4. “I have invented a machine that transfers the pain from the mother of the baby to the father.”
When the couple got home, the man was helping his wife out of the car when he spotted the UPS man on their front porch. The poor guy was foaming at the mouth. The man ran to the porch in time to see the poor guy go through the final convulsion that would end his life.
Happy Mardi Gras. Thank you Gartalker for the story. Pictures are from ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.

With the repeated snowstorms of this winter, some say the debate over “global warming” is over. Others beg to differ.
There is a matter of semantics. The problem is too much CO2 in the atmosphere, upsetting the balance that has evolved over billions of years. The greenhouse effect of the excess carbon, and the climate change that results, is one of the symptoms of this disease. The changing ph balance in the oceans is another one, and there may be others. PG suggests that “carbon pollution” may be a better phrase for this condition.
There are people whose fortunes are threatened by measures to reduce carbon pollution. These people…largely the oil industry…have lots of money to spend. When you consider that many of the “deniers’ are inclined to agree that carbon pollution is not a problem, you see what an easy sell this can be.
It is perhaps unfortunate that Al Gore is a leader in warning about carbon pollution. He is a politician, perceived as liberal, who has enemies. Many of the “conservatives” who hate him are “deniers”. Some of these people are persuaded by rhetorical cheap tricks.
Recently, a computer in England was hacked, and documents from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) were stolen. Some of these documents show shady dealings in the treatment of data. Many are calling this “climategate”, and saying that it is the death of concern over carbon pollution.
There are investigations ongoing into the hacking of the computer. It seems that the hacking took place in the Eastern USA or Canada, and was a sophisticated affair. The money quote : “All of this indicates that the hacker was no 14 year old in their parents basement but a professional with an agenda. Sir David King, the UK’s former chief scientist, concluded the complex theft was the work of US-based climate deniers backed by carbon money or a foreign government.”

PG tries to like Lady Gaga. He really does. She is the queen of the world at the moment, the hottest videos, the hottest songs, the hottest outfits. Being an old fogey is not as much fun.
Once, music was a background to life. You heard it on radio, on your stereo, in a bar…and you created your own visuals. Videos had a heyday in the early eighties, faded away, and are making a comeback. Lady Gaga is in the vanguard.
Never mind the music is just not that good. Music is just part of the package, just an item on the shelf at the virtual store.
Last night, PG was watching a video on the internet, and finally stopped the thing. The picture at the top is what he saw. The rest are from ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a way with words. Never mind the clumsy translations, the man speaks his mind. Sometimes he seems to contradict himself. Maybe the key factor is what the listener wants to hear.
In a recent interview on Russian TV, the fashionable one said that the era of nuclear weapons was over. The inability of the nuke happy United States to win in Iraq or Afghanistan was noted. “We believe that not only the Middle East but also the whole world should be free of nuclear weapons because we see such weapons as inhumane,””Those who claim that they are against nuclear weapons should dismantle their nuclear weapons first to prove that they are honest,”
The concept of a nuclear free middle east has been proposed. However, this would mean Israel would need to get rid of her nukes. This is not likely to happen…indeed, Israel is doing the most saber rattling about the Iranian nuke program. The suspicion remains that Israel is whining about Persian nukes to deflect attention away from the Palestinian problem.
Pictures are from ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”