Water Woes

DeKalb County simply cannot get its act together with regards to wet work. The CEO refuses to follow consolidation recommendations intended to improve the outrageous billing fiasco preferring instead to work on intra-bureacracy communications. Perchance the alternative would work but might cost jobs.

Then we have the effluent side of the equation. DeKalb has not exactly been good stewards of the stinky pipes routinely overflowing raw sewerage throughout the county. New developments always require storm water retention and increasingly other waste retention facilities are required, at the developers' cost. About as attractive to new development as the overflows are to current inhabitants.

But this is where it gets interesting because the potable and the unpalatable do in fact intersect. Oddly enough on your water bill. We all know this. Well all but a very few--those folks who are on a septic system. Yep, that's right, there are operational, well maintained septic systems in DeKalb County. There are even some in DaVille. And there are some folk on the County Commission who would like the county to encourage folks, by lowering tap-on fees,  to abandon their own system and tie into county sewer. Perhaps they think this is "fair" but it isn't to the homeowner, who thru their purchase price, paid the original developer the thousands required to hook up when the subdivision was built. Maybe they think the only problem with the county system is there isn't enough stuff running thru the pipes. Doesn't sound logical, but we are talking politicians here and logic beyond a bumpersticker or a hashtag won't fit in their little heads either.

Now you may know someone who actually has a home on septic. You may have heard them talk about their water bill: "Bill came yesterday...four-fifty this month...a bit higher than usual" and it may lead you to wonder what they mean by four-fifty. That would be $4.50 and not $450 which is closer to YOUR water bill. That's right, if you're on septic you're not paying the bill for a failed sewage system that overflows raw fecal matter into creeks, rivers and homes and if you do not insist on dumping drinking water on the ground to green up your grass, you will get by on less than a tenner per month.

Yes there is a downside. Only an idiot would plant shrubs and trees on the septic drain field. Thankfully, even with re-branding, Dunwoody is still a city that smarts. And if the field is in your back yard (you know who you are) there goes your dreams of a back yard pool. Well, maybe an above ground pool. And some will tell you that septic systems do not support garbage disposals. Jury is out on that one, but really, do you have to grind and flush potato peels and eggshells? And coffee grounds? Seriously? Get a Keurig, dude, and waste the whole thing. But there is a maintenance cost. You need to pump the tank every so often, maybe 5-7 years and it will cost a few hundred dollars. That might drive your overall bill up towards a Jackson. And if you don't pump it out you will be looking at a new drain field, but with newer technology (you know your system is over 30 years old) it will be more efficacious and smaller. Technology marches on. Even down there. And government, with its bureaucrats and politicians, remains the same. Even up here.

Exemplary Accomplishment

Though many arms were nearly dislocated patting themselves on the back the City has issued the 2017 Edition of "How Great We Art" that includes this primo example of code enforcement in the Dunwoody Village Overlay District:

It is as if someone at City Hall commanded the sun to come out and dry off that parking lot.  Now that's what we voted for!

Go With Luck

Another flailing retail operation finds the exit unable to save itself even with open disrespect for City ordinances and supported by the blind eye of their representative on City Council.

Nearby, the most egregious violator of the Dunwoody Overlay proudly claims the title of "Enemy From Within." Shame on them. They should and probably do know better and their disregard for this community is all the more repugnant. Shame. On. Them. And the Councilor in their back pocket.

To each and every business and politician who holds this community in disdain: go with luck--but go!

We're Not In Switzerland, Dottie

Guess when the 12:18 from Lausanne to Geneva departs the station? That's right. At 12:18. Not 12:30. Not even 12:20. It leaves at 12:18, with or without you. And here's a mystery yet to be solved in Atlanta: they run non-stop express trains and multi-stop trains on the same tracks at the same time. That's right, they've figured out how to get trains to pass other trains. Wow. Those half-blind watch-making elves have made their whole world one big clock.

Now our little international city's Olympic sized ego is going to dethrone the Swiss. MARTA is taking over the white elephant* known as The Streetcar with this cornerstone to righting the rails:

And it may align transit schedules to make it easier for passengers to hop off a MARTA train and use the streetcar for the last legs of their journeys.

Have these people even used their own service? Don't they know that MARTA never runs on time? Note that tardiness even applies to the first train of the day departing the North Springs station. How can that be given:

“Transit is our core competency,” MARTA Chief Operating Officer Richard Krisak told the MARTA Board of Directors on Thursday.

Because the most important word in the first of these AJC quotes is "may," not because it is aspiration but because of the political cover offered by the implicit "may not."

* Isn't it interesting in this world of hyper-sensitivity where so many words and phrases are virtual cyanide that one can still say white elephant? At least in Atlanta.

Doritas

Folks, it is a snack food, not a political statement. If you want to get your gender-neutral undergarments in a twisty regarding Doritos why don't you focus on health impacts? How about the environmental aspects of the packaging? Carbon footprint anyone? Instead the PC fascists are all hashtag horny over the fact that the president of PepsiCo, a woman, proposed a product variation suited to a particular demographic, women. Her mistake was she was really targeting a missing demographic, ladies. She was thinking gentility rather than genitalia.

What IS a boy to do? If chivalry is dead it did not die of natural causes--it was assassinated by a bunch of egotistical whiners leveraging social media to conflate a predilection to self-serving victimhood into persecution by claiming that a hangnail-calibre offense has seared their soul. Perhaps this is as fleeting a madness as #bringbackoutgirls or #oscarssowhite with a return to normalcy when the fever breaks.

Maybe chivalry isn't dead...



...it's just hiding.

The Market Has Spoken

No, not the roller coaster we call the Stock Market, but closer to home. Bidness in daVille. Illegal signage simply could not save a local sub shop from good taste. Now if market pressure can effect a similar change with Stupid.

Not His Finest Hour

No, not The Donald--Dr. Green. He came in claiming he was going to change the culture and he did bring some highly (over?) paid folks he trusted from jobs past. But the results have us wondering if the broken culture of DeKalb's schools is nothing more than a single instance of a broken culture that is public education in America.

In one case his and his crony's failing was illegal secrecy around a calendar committee. After questioning by someone at the AJC, who has the deep pockets for a very good lawyer, the Dark Green Machine fessed up and released the public information--to the public. Herr Doktor offered this excuse:

“I thought they were protected, that they had signed a form that gave them this privacy. I did not know there could not be an agreement like that.”

And just where do you suppose he got that tidbit? So much for culture change. And a FORM? Really? So any government group that wants to implement opacity needs only to write up a form? So the guy running a major, billion-dollar government operation doesn't know the laws under which it MUST operate? Ignorance, real or feigned, is always disturbing in government but particularly so in education as we reasonably expect more from those entrusted with our children's futures.

It gets better. Dr. Green has joined the whiners with regards to the APS annexation requesting legislative action to prevent future annexation. To his credit he is not too subtle, all but acknowledging it is only about the money. He sees OPM, largely from businesses as there are about 10 students in the transfer, as taking money from the over 70,000 mouths he has to feed. And he doesn't see himself fixing that problem anytime soon:

“Losing $4 or $5 million in perpetuity is a challenge.”

That would be challenging were it true but more credible sources peg the figure somewhere near one half that amount. Now if $5 million is a lot then $2.5 million is only half a lot. Right? So what is it? Ignorance? Advocacy? Hyperbole? Prevarication? Keeping up with the Trumps--hand size, crowd size?

Going forward Dr. Green should never ask why anyone would want to leave, by any means necessary, his school system. He should be called upon to explain, truthfully, factually, why anyone would want to stay.

Pity The Poor Mudbug

The Swiss (that is Switzerland not Sweden, though both are European countries) have joined the list of countries banning the boiling of live lobsters without first humanely dispatching or mind-numbing that most noble of food-stuffs. This says a lot about Switzerland. All of it good. This is a country where the topmost problem to be addressed is the tank-to-table treatment of a seafood delicacy. When this is your biggest problem you must be in Valhalla. Oops, wrong country.

If you're thinking this is left-wingnuts gone off-leash, you are right on track. Keep in mind these are the folks that have been "boiling the frog" that is your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness since time began. For them, boiling a lobster is eezee-peezee. But like everything else, it must be done their way.

Where does it end? Sure, rich folk, dining out on foie gras and champagne can afford to have their crustaceans tipsy on a bit of the Dom before the hot tub, but what of the more pedestrian sea-roaches? The ones the unwashed masses, those NOT invited to the Davos Day-As-A-Refugee event, can afford? The prawn? The shrimp? The lowly crawdaddy? Glad you asked. Turns out PETA has been pushed aside by Crustacean Compassion founded to put an end to inhumane treatment of all crustacean species and build a body of scientific evidence justifying their cause. The next British Invasion is coming! For your low-country boil.

So the mud bug is, or soon will be, safe from a painful death. What of the mollusks? Pity the poor clam. Or what of the mussels? It is major bad chi to cook a dead mussel and eating one that did not expire in the cooking process is just not allowed. Even by gentiles. What of the insects, particularly those often [mis]characterized as pests? Crickets are entering the human food chain alongside snails (escargot), bees (chocolate covered) and grasshoppers (fried). When will these advocates for multi-cell life forms take notice? Take up the cause? And when will the umbrella of their concern shield the lowly single-cells from the inhumanity of our human race. When will they set their sights on our beer? Is wine untouchable?

But there is a limit. These are liberals run amok, but first and foremost these are liberals. Steeped in the religion and bowing only to the gods of liberalism in its increasingly singular and cohesive form. And there is one area, one holy ground upon which concern for the demise of an organism will not tread. That is the nascent life of the human species. Nary a care for the zygote. Nada for the embryo. Fetal pain? Right wing mythology. In liberal doctrine even nigh unto birth a child in the womb feels no pain. Scientific fact.

So the next time you find yourself at a soirée and over-served libs begin their "care more for the unborn than all the world's children" diatribe, ask them why they care more about the creation of Lobster Thermidor than the creation of a human being.