Radical Georgia Moderate

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Former county commissioner Butch Thompson had sued to stop the program. He and his lawyer, former Gov. Roy Barnes, argued in a hearing July 8 that school officials participated in a “bait and switch” when they promised that the 1 percent sales tax would, in part, “refresh obsolete [computer} workstations.”

Barnes argued that school officials should be held to information they distributed at the time of the vote, when they estimated they could buy 30,000 computers for students for about $32 million, as well as use tens of millions of dollars more — for a total of $76 million — to “refresh” things like printers and servers and buy every teacher a “computing device.”

School officials later decided they could eventually distribute 63,000 Apple iBook laptops to all teachers and all students in grades six through 12. About $25 million of the sales tax money was to be used for the program’s first phase, which the school board approved in April.

Read the article here (login). I agree with Barnes’ argument, which sounds accurate based on what I’ve read the past few months. The plan was and is harebrained from top-to-bottom, and that reality is tough for me to accept as someone who is a technology advocate in general and an Apple advocate specifically.

My new employer and I discussed this situation the other day, and he said there are two primary points of attack for opposing forces against any plan that uses public dollars: 1) attack its merit, or 2) attack its process. In this case, there is fodder to attack the plan from either angle, which makes it especially vulnerable.

For those who haven’t been keeping up with this, the merit angle is nobody seems to be able to explain why all 63,000 middle and high school students need laptops, aside from a fluffy belief in the magical transformative power of technology. Results from pilot studies in other school systems conducting similar programs have been inconclusive, and there was no pilot study performed here.

As for the process, it has lacked transparency and given off an image of bait-and-switch, as suggested by the article. There was also a dash of possible cronyism thrown in for good measure. The appearance of impropriety — whether true or not — is more damning than questions about the merit of the program.

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Then the interviewer would say, “we don’t want to rock the boat, we only want to sway it gently from side-to side. A little. Like a gentle breeze.”

Then I’d say, “What kind of crackers are those on the table over there?”

Then she’d say, “Wheat Thins.”

Then I’d say, “May I have a few?”

Then she’d say, “Okay.”

Then I’d say, “These are delicious.”

Then she’d say, “We put them out this morning specifically for our interview candidates.”

Then I’d say, “Do you have any apple juice to wash these down?”

Then she’d say, “Unfortunately not, but we do have bottled water in the mini fridge over there.”

Then I’d say, “Well, I sure could go for some apple juice.”

Then she’d say, “Sorry, there’s no apple juice.”

Then I’d say, “There’s no apple juice in this entire building?”

Then she’d say, “I don’t know. Maybe in the cafeteria?”

Then I’d say, “Some investigative journalist you are. You don’t even know if there’s apple juice in the building.”

Then she’d say, “I’m not a journalist. I work in human resources.”

Then I’d say, “Psssh. Whatever.”

Then she’d say, “I am so!”

Then I’d say, “Are not!”

Then she’d say, “Am so!”

Then I’d say, “Are not!”

Then she’d say, “Am so!”

Then I’d say, “Are so!”

Then she’d say, “Am not!”

Then I’d say, “See, I told you so.”

Then I’d get up and leave.

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Drive Time

It took me 38 minutes to drive 13 miles to the Perimeter Mall MARTA rail station yesterday. That compares to an 8-mile drive in 23 minutes to ride the Cobb County Transit bus (a drive I could probably make shorter, and which in any case avoids highways altogether).

Southbound Toll

$1.25 for CCT, $1.75 for MARTA

Northbound Toll

Regardless of whether I’m riding CCT or MARTA northbound at the end of the day, I still have to pay for a MARTA token.

Southbound Convenience

CCT is generally more convenient because it’s a shorter drive from my house to the bus station. The exception is when I75S is jammed up and I285E isn’t, in which case it becomes more convenient to drive a little further to the MARTA station. The bus’ route runs down I75S, and the ride could be extraordinarily long in that case. Another factor to consider is buses seem more prone to break down than heavy rail trains do.

Northbound Convenience

CCT wins hands down because of MARTA’s inane decision to stop running northbound trains from the Arts Center station after 8 p.m. I didn’t find this out until last night when, had some nice person not given me a ride to the Lindbergh Center station, I would have been up shit creek.

Overall Cost

My employer offered me an unlimited ride MARTA pass (discounted courtesy of the Midtown Alliance), or cash in lieu of that. Accepting would mean paying the southbound CCT toll on my own. So it makes more sense to accept the cash, right? Well, there are other factors.

I can find use for a MARTA pass outside the confines of my daily commute, whereas I’d have little use for a CCT pass.

When gasoline prices are factored in, the extra 10 miles in my round trip to the MARTA station would negate the cost savings of having unlimited MARTA use, considering The Big Red Bastard guzzles gasoline the way Jenna Jameson guzzles… you get the idea. So, paying the CCT toll myself works out to roughly the same cost (or less) as driving to the MARTA station.

Decision Time

The lack of a post-8 p.m. northbound Arts Center train was too much for me to bare. And yet, I still went with the MARTA pass because 1) I would have to pay a MARTA toll to ride the northbound CCT anyway, 2) I can find extra use for a MARTA pass, and 3) it works out to the same cost for me to pay one way on CCT as it would for me to drive extra distance to the nearest MARTA station.

How this will work is I plan to check Georgia Navigator in the morning for traffic problems, and will only drive the extra distance to the MARTA station when something bad is happening on I75S and I285E is relatively clear.

It doesn’t seem like this process should require nearly as much thought or effort as it has for me. And it still seems like there could easily be better options (like the ideas coming out of Citizens for Progressive Transit, for example).

Negative thoughts aside, I’m still saving at least a tank or two of gas every month this way, which works out to $45 to $90 (yeah, you read that right). When factored in with a daily parking charge of at least $4 in most places, those savings add up quickly and are worth a few headaches here and there.

UPDATE: This is all very confusing. Apparently, I can get a northbound train from the Arts Center station, BUT I have to get off at the Lindbergh station and transfer after 8 p.m.

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There is likely somewhere along that line where I can catch the bus with slightly less driving, but for the sake of throwing as few variables into the equation as possible, I drove to where the bus was taking me the least distance yesterday. Without even trying out MARTA as I plan to today, I’m leaning toward sticking with the CCT bus. The MARTA station I’ll drive to today is surely further from my house and less convenient than the Cumberland transit station.

However, the snag to that is on my way home, I have to pay for a $1.75 MARTA token to get into the Arts Station as opposed to the CCT fare I paid on the way down. So… getting an all-I-can-ride pass for one still leaves me paying for the other. I’m thinking since I can get some use out of the MARTA buses and trains while I’m downtown that I might accept the free MARTA pass my employer is offering and just eat the $1.25 CCT toll. I only work in the office three days per week, so $3.75 isn’t that big a deal when I’m saving at least $100 per month on gasoline.

Today: drive to the Perimeter Mall MARTA station, take the heavy rail into town.

And if you’re curious how my first day on the job went, it was fine. There was lots and lots and lots of reading to do, and there’s more where that came from.

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I don’t know why, but it’s how I answer every time, without fail. Maybe I’m just not as clever and creative with my vocabulary as I like to pretend I am, or maybe there’s some significance to the phrase that I’m missing. Whatever the reason, it’s always my response.

Speaking of people who aren’t very clever… what possesses people to ask that same goddamn question to anyone who isn’t married? Do they need me to be married to boost their own self-esteem? Fuck that.

Then, even better, was some mouth-breathing lip flapper from my brother’s school who had to slip as many GOP buzzwords as possible into his sermon during the ceremony. Goddamn, I hate Christians.

“Secular pop music says love is a feeling… don’t get trapped into accepting the secular definition of love… God’s version is the only way…”

Christ man, there’s enough Kool Aid waiting for us at goddamn reception.

Oh, also, I almost punched out the drink lady. They served nothing but tea, and I hate tea. So I asked for a Coke.

“We’re not serving Coke,” she hissed.

I looked down behind the counter. Sure enough, there was an entire pallet of fucking Diet Cokes.

“What about those Diet Cokes?” I asked.

“I said we’re not serving Cokes.”

You fucking bitch, I thought to myself, right before a torrent of profanity so swift and angry shot through my temples that I couldn’t possibly articulate it here.

“Yeah, I’m only the groom’s brother, and he only dropped about eight grand on this ceremony,” I muttered as I walked off, knowing violence would have occurred had I stood there negotiating for a Diet Coke.

“Fucking cunt,” I muttered under my breath.

My camera is a hunk of shit, so I’m just going to post these two photos and then I’m done with it. A gallery would have been boring as shit even if the photos had turned out better than blurry ass.

Here’s me and Little Bro:

And some porno to start your evening off right:

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This is Chris, generally referred to here as Little Bro:

And that’s Abby on the left:

As you can see, my Nikon Coolpix 3200 hates me.

The reception dinner at Canoe last night was pretty solid. There was an Ostrich appetizer, New York Strip entrée and a stellar vanilla and sugar cookie dessert. On the downside, the New York strip came out medium even though I asked for medium-rare. The dessert more than made up for it though.

I can’t even fathom the idea of marriage without a massive case of heartburn welling up in my chest. To each his own, I reckon. The only marriage wedding I had fun at was my friend Jamie’s. The ceremony was only 15 minutes, and there were multiple kegs, boxed wine, and a crowd of motivated heathens to imbibe them with at the reception afterwards.

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Thursday’s House vote made 14 temporary provisions of the legislation permanent and extended two others that had been scheduled to lapse at the end of the year.

Civil libertarians have strongly opposed the measures, which give law enforcement officials access to educational, financial and medical records without having to show probable cause of a crime.

It also allows police and prosecutors to access details of an individual’s Internet activities and correspondence without probable cause or consent, among other measures.

It’s a good thing I borrowed Catcher in the Rye rather than checking it out from the library. I wouldn’t want the government to know about my blasphemy fetish. Yeah, Big Brother can keep tabs on what you read.

Another article I read (can’t remember where) framed the article as, “in wake of the London terror attacks as the nation panics over its security, Congress voted to extend the Patriot Act.” What vapid craven cowardice drivel. Crap, I say. Why haven’t more blogs been griping about this?

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