Radical Georgia Moderate

In convenient slideshow format:

Also, I took this photo of birds doin’ it at my apartment complex yesterday morning before we left for the festival:

Maybe I should be like Amber and install a plugin to automatically update my blog with a digest of Twitter tweets. Then I wouldn’t even need to write “real” posts.

• Heading out to wait on the 16 bus en route to my sonogram about 3 hours ago from txt
• Gah, just watched the bus go by as I was waiting for a crossing signal about 2 hours ago from txt
• @Flyswatter well, I was my usual lollygagging self…the bus was right on time about 2 hours ago from txt in reply to Flyswatter
• @amberlrhea already did my pre-reg, so I don’t think I have to be in til 8…but I wanted to doublecheck about 2 hours ago from txt in reply to amberlrhea
• Correction, the 2 bus, not the 16 bus about 2 hours ago from txt
• Phycho on the bus kept yelling ‘midtown place, borders!’ til she got off at midtown place about 2 hours ago from txt
• @rustytanton when I got on, she looked at me and excitedly said ‘we’re almost at midtown place!’ about 2 hours ago from txt
• Just got off at ptree and ponce about 2 hours ago from txt
• Hungry, but can’t eat before the sonogram about 2 hours ago from txt
• That woman was going to borders, but I don’t think it opens til 9 or 10 about 2 hours ago from txt
• At the hospital, just saw a colostomy bag. Eww. about 2 hours ago from txt
• Signed in at the radiology desk, posted a photo of a hospital aviary to flickr about 1 hour ago from txt
  
• Small gallstones, may require surgery…boooo…walking back to marta in the rain and wind 43 minutes ago from txt
• No umbrella, got drenchd…jogged past the spotted dog, where a lobbyist got hit with a beer bottle 32 minutes ago from txt
• Just rode the 23 about 200 ft to avoid rain, only to get caught at a light…getting some fucking starbucks 23 minutes ago from txt
• Dried my hair with starbucks napkins 22 minutes ago from txt
• at work, hoping I don’t catch a cold from my wet clothes less than 20 seconds ago from web

From a post by Buzz Anderson about why he’s leaving Apple Inc.:

But it wasn’t just the workload. As the stress and hours increased at work, my 45 minute commute down 280, which I had initially thought of as a reasonable (even pleasant and scenic) drive, became a soul crushing daily slog. With most of my social life in San Francisco, but my demanding job an exhausting drive away in Cupertino, I started finding it harder and harder to keep up relationships. As a recent article about commuting in The New Yorker put it:

“I was shocked to find how robust a predictor of social isolation commuting is,” Robert Putnam, a Harvard political scientist, told me. (Putnam wrote the best-seller “Bowling Alone,” about the disintegration of American civic life.) “There’s a simple rule of thumb: Every ten minutes of commuting results in ten percent fewer social connections. Commuting is connected to social isolation, which causes unhappiness.”

In case you were wondering where Neal Boortz’s audience comes from…

The moral is live close to your job if you can. That’s especially important in Georgia, where long-range transportation planning has been reduced to playing tonsil hockey with the road lobby.

There is no applying logic of any kind, even conspiracy theories, to what these people are doing.

You might have heard that Governor Sonny Perdue vetoed a budget over a fishing program, of all things. And that the House might call him on it, but not likely the Senate.

Democrats lately have a knack for stumbling into some power through Republican stupidity despite themselves. It sure looks like a power struggle between the two chambers and the governor’s mansion is unraveling the whole party.

But is it stupidity this time out? I know it looks like Perdue and Richardson are feuding, but I wonder if they’re in cahoots despite appearances.

These are the choices Democrats have…

The governor is a lame duck who doesn’t really have to fit into the equation since he doesn’t appear to have aspirations for higher office, or is at least realistic about his chances.

If they vote with the Speaker to override the governor’s veto, they reassert his power over that chamber, which has been giving all outward appearances of being a fading star this session. They possibly revive his hopes for governor in 2010, and they shift responsibility for the tax increase to the Senate and the governor (who doesn’t care since he’s not running for higher office).

If they vote not to override the veto, they put another nail in Richardson’s coffin, but then have to explain in the next election why they voted for a tax increase.

Those aren’t very good choices.

This scenario is unsubstantiated speculation on my part, but if true, it’d be a balls out, all-in move for the Speaker. Which seems like his style.

But then, I’m bleary-eyed and this might seem like rubbish tomorrow morning.

I‘m starting to wonder if I should be writing a politics blog when I’m usually behind on writing anything timely about politics. It’s a good thing there are other writers around who are on it. Today’s quote of the day is about the NRA from O’ Tim at Much That Is Hidden:

The National Rifle Association is resembling more and more Glenn Close’s bunny-boiling character in Fatal Attraction. The bitch just won’t stay dead.

See also: Griftdrift channeling Hunter S. Thompson in Thugs and Aaron Karp’s Neal Boortz and the Wussification of America.

In more general terms, I don’t have any consistent ideas about how gun sales should be handled. It’s another one of those issues that makes me question the value of having opinions about anything. I can see both sides of that argument.

The government can be scary and I definitely believe in people’s rights to own guns generally in case we have to defend ourselves against it. And there’s some truth to the “if you outlaw guns, criminals will have them and law-abiding citizens won’t” argument. It’s kind of like trying to outlaw drugs or alcohol… people who want them badly enough will get them whether they’re legal or not, so the people being punished by such laws are the ones who enjoy those things responsibly, not the people who are likely to use them irresponsibly.

But then, I see mentally ill people like the Va. Tech shooter being able to purchase them legally, and it does make me wonder if a line on who can and can’t purchase them should be drawn somewhere that it’s not being drawn now.

Regardless, good for the state Senate on telling the NRA where they can stick their report cards.

This is federal government stuff, and usually wouldn’t be mentioned here, but I found this interview with former DOJ attorney Daniel J. Metcalfe fascinating. He compares the management styles of various attorney generals from the Watergate era all the way up to Alberto Gonzalez. Money quote for me about Gonzalez’s style:

After all, it was “the group” that did it (whatever that might be), and they achieved presumptively benign “consensus” (at all costs) before moving forward. You can imagine how important this is to someone whose primary interest in most any government action is to make sure that it doesn’t somehow get in the way of securing that next (but not necessarily last) position before the end of a presidential administration. And remember that there’s little downside to operating in this way if your basic view of government (in line with your inexperience) holds little respect for it in the first place. In other words, if it doesn’t really matter so much to you how well or efficiently a government activity is handled, just so long as it eventually is handled, then the thinking is: Why not handle it in the way that most effectively minimizes personal risk? What this breeds, of course, is an utter lack of individual responsibility — the very antithesis of good government.

To celebrate her fifth year blogging, Amber moved her blog to Wordpress (and a new domain) from her homebrew ASB (A Simple Blog) system. And there will be drinkage at Manuel’s Friday night.

I guess that means I’ll never get to port my Wordpress theme to ASB.

I‘m talking with a nice fellow over at IMAGE about recording some of the filmmaker Q&As at the Atlanta Film Festival, which is taking place April 19-28. Would anybody be interested in helping?

There are too many films playing for us to be able to make all of them. Ideally, we’d like to break up the effort such so that each volunteer only was working on recordings for one day or less. We’re not trying to be comprehensive, but it’d be nice to get as many as we could. Even if you could only make it out for a few hours one day to record one or two Q&As, that would be helpful.

This isn’t for money (for us, them, or anybody else), just a get-the-word-out effort to try to help some local filmmakers receive some publicity they might not receive otherwise.

Here’s a rough, not final schedule of Q&As available to record:

Friday, April 20
7:30 p.m. MONDAY, Heidi Van Lier and Joe Kraemer
9:45 p.m. AUGUST THE FIRST, Director Olanrewaju Olabisis

Saturday, April 21
2:15 p.m. THE PAPER, Director Aaron Matthews
2:15 p.m. PEZHEADS–THE MOVIE, Chris Marshall, Chris Skeene, Kendra Skeene
2:45 p.m. ALL THE DAYS BEFORE TOMORROW, Director Francois Dompierre
4:15 p.m. THIRD MONDAY IN OCTOBER, Director Vanessa Roth
4:15 p.m. ELECTION DAY, Director Katy Chevigny
5 p.m. THE INEVITABLE UNDOING OF JAY BROOKS, Director Phyliis Johnson
6:30 p.m. THE KILLER WITHIN, Director Macky Alston
6:30 p.m. DAYTRIP, Tracy Martin, Patrick Parker
7 p.m. DANTE’S INFERNO, Director Sean Meredith
7:15 p.m. HAMILTON, Director Matthew Porterfield
8:30 p.m. BLUE BLOOD, Director Rafael Marmor
9:15 p.m. MURDER PARTY, Director Jeremy Saulnier
11 p.m. THE LAST ZOMBIE, James Murphy and Dan Bartlett
11:15 p.m. FLESH & BLOOD, Larry Silverman and Beki Buelow

Sunday, April 22
12 p.m. SOLDIERS OF CONSCIENCE, Director Gary Weimberg
12:15 p.m. DRIFTING ELEGANT, Director Amy Glazer
2:30 p.m. RESERVATIONS, Director Aloura Charles
4:30 p.m. GREAT WORLD OF SOUND, Director Craig Zobel

Monday, April 23
12:45 p.m. BLUE BLOOD, Director Rafael Marmor
2:15 p.m. PEZHEADS–THE MOVIE, Chris Marshall, Chris Skeene, Kendra Skeene
4:30 p.m. MURDER PARTY, Director Jeremy Saulnier
5 p.m. MONDAY, Heidi Van Lier and Joe Kraemer

Tuesday, April 24
12 p.m. HAMILTON, Director Matthew Porterfield
3 p.m. ALL THE DAYS BEFORE TOMORROW, Director Francois Dompierre
4:30 p.m. GREAT WORLD OF SOUND, Director Craig Zobel
5:30 p.m. THE PAPER, Director Aaron Matthews

Wednesday, April 25
12:15 p.m. DRIFTING ELEGANT, Director Amy Glazer
2:30 p.m. OUR LAND, OUR LIFE, Beth & George Gage
2:45 p.m. ELECTION DAY, Director Katy Chevigny
4:30 p.m. SOLDIERS OF CONSCIENCE, Director Gary Weimberg
5 p.m. THIRD MONDAY IN OCTOBER, Director Vanessa Roth
6:45 p.m. KILROY WAS HERE, Charlie Boyles and Laurka Marciniak Kobylanski

Thursday, April 26
12 p.m. THE KILLER WITHIN, Director Macky Alston
12 p.m. RESERVATIONS, Director Aloura Charles
12:15 p.m. DAYTRIP, Tracy Martin, Patrick Parker
2 p.m. FLESH & BLOOD, Larry Silverman and Beki Buelow
5 p.m. KILROY WAS HERE, Charlie Boyles and Laurka Marciniak Kobylanski
9:15 p.m. OUR LAND, OUR LIFE, Beth & George Gage
10 p.m. BLOOD CAR, Adam Pinney, Mike Brune, Katie Rowlett, Tony Holley

Friday, April 27
3 p.m. THE LAST ZOMBIE, James Murphy and Dan Bartlett
5:15 p.m. BLOOD CAR, Adam Pinney, Mike Brune, Katie Rowlett, Tony Holley

Saturday, April 28
7:30 p.m. FAY GRIM, Director Hal Hartley

Please let me know if you can help on any of those days. And please forward this to anybody you think might be interested in helping. You can email me at rusty@gapodcastnetwork.com. Thanks!

Cross-posted on my Georgia Podcast Network blog

The new project Jon Flack is working on has now been unleashed on an unsuspecting public: Tondee’s Tavern. As described in the email I just received about it:

Some of you are aware that I have been working on a blog project, others not, and some of you have no idea who the hell I am. In any case, I wanted to invite you over to Tondee’s Tavern, a new Democratic “Center to Left” group blog covering politics in Georgia. The blog will be represented on the front page by bloggers from all over the state and we hope to establish a state-wide netroots community. You can find out more about what we are planning by visiting.

That’s a good-looking template. I added its feed to Bloglines and will be following it closely.

Just please keep it up-to-date so it doesn’t go the way of gapolitics.net, which got off to a strong start and then fizzled out quickly. If you’re going to compete with Peach Pundit, you’ll need some compelling content. Like it or not, there really isn’t a better place right now to keep abreast of what’s going on in the Legislature. I’d love for there to be some actual competition, so best of luck to you in providing it.