Absolutely Necessary

We are seeing some powerful words being bandied about of late. This could be due to the Manget Way train wreck, the neighboring Brookhaven "macerated equals redacted" lysol spray kerfuffle or just the fact that DeKalb is like a cold sore that won't go away. So we're being treated to statements like "it is absolutely necessary to restore the public's trust..."

Really? Absolutely Necessary?

And just what happens if the public's trust isn't restored or worse yet further erodes? Will DeKalb or Dunwoody or Brookhaven lose their charter and fold their tent? Not likely. Actually what will happen is what has been happening. Corruption and unethical behaviour will continue to be the lifeblood of local politics and voters, what few there are, will either vote on single issues (the smart ones) or they'll vote based on personality and personal grooming (the dumb ones).

And things will remain the same. Unless they get worse.

Bicycle Heaven

Cool bikes, huh?

Just sittin' there, no locks, just waitin' for someone to hop on. Just like these.

Looks like something Google would do, doesn't it? Well, that's because it is.

Now, we over to the TOD can hear yer little mental gears a-strippin' : why can't we, in the next to newest City That Should [TM] do this? Here. Now.

Well for starters we have hills and Google is, well, in The Valley. And it can be hot in The Valley it's the kind of heat that comes without the 100% humidity. Then there is the fact that Googleplex is a relatively closed campus while the City That Should has a mishmosh of State, County and City asphalt. Other than that everything is identical.

What's that you say? "But, this is really really cool and EVERYBODY should do it!"

Really?

Well how 'bout this. Why don't you get your bad self on over to The Valley and get a job with Google setting yourself up in Bicycle Heaven? What? Not smart enough to score a job at Google? Ain't that a shame? 'Cuz if you were you might score one of these bad boys...

Screw the bikes.

Overbooked

Airlines, including our hometown fave Delta, have been overbooking flights for years. It has gotten so bad that Delta has found it necessary to alert customers to the fact that it is not acceptable to cop a squat on the engine in order to arrive on the flight they "booked" and naively believed would get them home.

Guest Post: Oh Deer!

First in a series of guest posts by:

Dog With A Phone

Don't It Make Your Blue Tank Brown

Apparently the blue water tower over to the First Baptist Bank of Dunwoody is about to get its beige on. There is a reason these monstrosities are painted blue as this helps them melt into the background sky and outside of Gaffney Moons The World and the Golf Ball On A Tee south of town they're not exactly object d'art. Even then art IS in the eye of the beholder.

All the Dunwoody and JAP jokes* aside beige is and always has been the unofficial colour of Dunwoody despite that godawful green used all over the City website. While a beige sport coat aligns the tower with the brick and beige faux Williamsburg theme all but mandatory for any self-respecting structure in Dunwoody it will make the thing stand out like a sore thumb unless we cultivate some serious smog. But it will become a distinctive gateway structure screaming "Welcome to Dunwoody--Beige Is As Brown As We Get!" Or maybe it will be the colour version of the You Must Be This Tall signs at Six Flags: You Must Be Lighter Than This To Enter Dunwoody.

But it isn't all weird. Our photo-opping Mayor intends to use the light brown tower-thingy as the cornerstone of his re-election campaign. As well he should. Everyone in Dunwoody will probably agree that getting the tower painted beige is the best thing he's done since taking office.





* Honey we really should paint the ceiling beige.

Collectibles

Political Correctness as a form of Mass Madness has opened some opportunities in the collectibles market.

The obvious is guns and ammo. Stockpiling now allows the savvy investor to cash in when the seemingly inevitable Hillary takes office as there will certainly be a run on guns. You might think this is a narrow market focussing on AR-15s, AK-47s and other intimidating assault weapons but it is broader than you think. The last assault on weapons caused such a run on 22LR that supply has yet to recover. For rimfire, ferchissakes!

If there is anything more abhorrent to the PC crowd than guns it has to be cigarettes and smoking. Collectibles? Ashtrays and cigarette cases and lighters. Just stay away from cheap because there is still too much around of truly high quality. Think art deco or mid century modern. Kinda Mad Men. But rest assured the PC policy will destroy them all so collect now before they're gone.

The current PC attack is against all things CSA. The most obvious is the infamous Confederate battle flag with supplies to dwindle as the PC police have shamed manufacturers into halting or limiting production and retailers into halting sales and doing gawd knows what with existing inventory. But it's more than just banners. There's bumper stickers--Fergit Hell! all the way down to Southern By the Grace of God. CSA belt buckles. Johnny Reb hats. Musical car horns that play Dixie. Hell, what about those GT bottle openers down at the Ace Hardware store? Did you know there are a few bars of Dixie in the middle of Up With The White And Gold? Better snatch those up before they're tossed in the dustbin.

And PC is a weird thing indeed. Chris Rock can lay out the N-word though Oprah will give him shit. You try it and your ass is grass. Obama can say it, intentionally, in public and the AJC quotes him using the full word as if we don't all know what "N-word" means. Does Oprah have the balls to give him shit? No? Well maybe she should go get a pair. We hear Bruce Jenner has a couple to spare. Or is it not PC to say that?

Set Our Urkel Free!

The superficial facts have not changed. We have a successful young and ambitious black politician with an Ivy League education whose peers have declared a felon sending him to jail. Depending on sentencing and appeals his next stop may well be prison where he will very likely encounter the kinds of black men he aspired not to be. And we applauded him for those aspirations. We still do.

Many will say it is a shame that he is going to prison. But it isn't. He clearly deserves punishment, the same and to the same degree as would any other. What is a shame is that he has thrown away a prized education, all his hard work, his career, his esteem in the community and has done such damage to his wife and children. Add to this his violation of public trust and abuse of power. Should he go to prison? Certainly. Should we feel sorry? Not for him.

Mecca Of Meccas

In the Southeast Atlanta has at one time or another been characterized as a "Mecca" for some self-identifying group. A black mecca all the way from folks fleeing repression in the South on into the Civil Rights movement (though largely around Atlanta, for well documented reasons) thru freaknik and now into Hippity Hop Central. Then there is the gay and lesbian community, originally holed up around Piedmont park but time and tolerance offered geographic dispersion and a general attitude of "OK, you're gay."

But since the ill-conceived invention of freon and the equally ill-conceived expansion of the airport, Atlanta has been a mecca for business. No unions, low taxes, cheap houses (not just inexpensive, but cheap) and access to the finest sports, entertainment and medical care by way of our airport made Atlanta a no-brainer for snow-bound Yankee businesses, their executives and managers. And we got a lot of the no-brainers.

It's not just that these were people willing to uproot themselves, abandon family and community, so that they might carve out a new life just north of the gnat line, but that they did it for money. Resonates in daVille. Dunwoody would not be what it is today were it not for the confluence of white flight and the influx of Yankee migrants and a bit of the former and much of the latter persists to this day. This not only explains the braggadocio of "More Dunwoody Than You"* but also Dunwoody's enduring success at self-segregation.

It also explains one of our biggest problems: lack of identity. When most movers and shakers come from somewhere else and the weight of their opinion (and intellect) can be summed up in "I've lived in Dunwoody for 23 years and I say we..." no one should be surprised that we are eat up with folks who want daVille to be just like [NYC, Chicago, Seattle, Denver, ...] except for [the cold, the snow, the wind, the high prices, ...]. Rather than pretend Dunwoody is (or should be) just like where ever you're from except warmer we should accept that Dunwoody is a Mecca for Whites with convenient access to Hartsfield so you can go visit where ever you're from. Our real brand isn't Smart people -- Smart city, but more like "White Flight Stops Here!" Own it.

* "Dunwoody resident since 1992" is even a tag-line on the City's home page. And yes, the couple pictured are white. Cruise the Dunwoody web site and check out all the pictures and play the Aryan from Darien version of "Where's Waldo" where you look for black people.