Tag: politics

When in doubt, change the name, make logos

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

That’s the Atlanta way.  Or rather, announce news that declares some grand unification of transportation agencies in order to mask that some other umbrella-shell company is being created that will pay off a whole lot of new people for doing jack shit.

Fresh on the heels of my last post where Google put a spotlight on the unintentionally-official meaning of MARTA comes this news that Georgia is going to create a regional transit governing system that will oversee the mass transit authorities across the entire Metro Atlanta area; including MARTA.  The solution?  A new name!

The Atlantaregion Transit Linkauthority, or The ATL!  And they invented new words in the process because they don’t know how acronyms work!

In other words, the goal on paper is that supposedly by 2023, all buses, from Cobb’s CobbLink, Gwinnett’s GRTA, MARTA, and any other regional buses in Clayton or DeKalb will all be re-branded ATL buses.  All MARTA trains will be re-branded ATL trains.  The ATL transportation options will hopefully be consolidated under one brand and identity, with the theory that it will supposedly actually help boost economic viability.

What’s actually going to happen is that by 2019, the teats of all these regional transit authority will be milked by a few people who came up with this brilliant idea, they’ll make a lot of money, by 2021, The ARTLA will be all but forgotten 2022, Cobb and Gwinnett will still be afraid of black people and oppose the rebranding of their buses and in 2023, MARTA will still be MARTA, GRTA will still be GRTA, Cobb will still be vehemently opposed to black people, and Google will still spit out Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta in their queries for the meaning of MARTA.

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The America we live in

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Typically, I try not to write things that are remotely political in nature, but ultimately the point of my brog is to have a space in which I write out my thoughts, and whether six people read my words or zero people read them, it’s still an exercise in putting my thoughts into words and occasionally seeing if I can get any further clarity out of expressing them.

It’s hard to ignore and remain silent on the topic of gun control, considering the latest episode of American Massacre involved a bunch of high school students and faculty getting gunned down by a mentally unstable person who somehow had possession of an AR-15 automatic assault rifle.  I don’t mean to sound ignorant and uneducated in all the facts, but the truth is that I have not gone out of my way to learn more than the surface facts of the whole tragedy because frankly I don’t want to get too detailed in what I already know is a horrific incident that could probably have been prevented if not for the simple fact that firearms, and extremely deadly firearms, are just way too fucking accessible in America.

Ultimately, I’m fine with handguns and the general guidelines of the Second Amendment.  Believe me, I thought long and hard about acquiring a gun after some stupid shitheads kicked in my front door with the intent to rob my house, except that I was home when it happened, and they ran instead of seeing if I were packing or not when I came running down my hallway.  However, my thoughts were always a handgun, or a shotgun at most, and only one.  Not a weapon that a Taliban fighter would be carrying on their person at all time, or any weapon that would be available by default in first-person horde shooter.

I don’t think assault weaponry needs to be available to the public in any capacity, yet here we stand, in an America where quite literally, anyone can somehow manage to get their hands on one, regardless of their mental capacity, or existing rap sheets with law enforcement.  If someone has enough murderous intent, they’re more than capable of acquiring an instrument of mass death.

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I guess Atlanta can kiss Amazon HQ2 goodbye now

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

If you’d have asked me any time prior to today what I thought were the chances that Atlanta would have landed Amazon’s prized HQ2, I would have said somewhere in the realm of, 100%.

And I wouldn’t be saying it solely because I live here, and I’d love the idea of HQ2 taking root in my city; in fact, I’m actually quite skeptical of if Atlanta were to be the selected holy land to secure HQ2.  As much as people believe that the arrival of Amazon into the State of Georgia would magically turn the entire state into millionaires, there’s quite a substantial amount of proof that quite the opposite could occur, from one corporate entity holding way too much leverage over the place they chose to call home.

But I think when all the dust has settled, I think there’s more room for benefit and good to come out of HQ2 being in Atlanta than would be if it didn’t.  And realistically speaking, I genuinely feel like Atlanta has a very good shot and getting HQ2, mostly because it’s a city that offers just about everything that they’re looking for: an EST time zone, mild climate that rarely has to worry about snowstorms derailing everything, a major travel vein both domestically and internationally, major hubs for both UPS and FedEx, and a pipeline into a prominent tech incubator that Georgia Tech would be for them. 

Most importantly, Georgia is a state that has proven to be more than willing to play ball with big businesses, and have been willing to bend over backwards for prominent names and businesses, such as Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and the entire film industry.  Without question, Georgia and the City of Atlanta would have done absolutely whatever it took to make Amazon pick them for HQ2, even if it meant royally screwing every single Georgian in the process, just to be able to say tomorrow will be better than today.  Shit, one entire town has declared willingness to rename their entire populous Amazon, if they were chosen to house HQ2.

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I’d vote for that

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So it’s been a little bit of time since the rise and fall of Renaissance, Georgia, ironically before it even got to be risen officially.  It’s actually been quiet since then, which means the twisted local government is either plotting their next attempt to deceive the people and roll something out without any of their representation, or perhaps they’re busy watching Netflix instead.  Either way, with the failure that was Renaissance, the name of the area remains the cold and callous sounding “South Fulton.”

And unless you’ve been living under a rock, Black Panther-mania has taken over the world for this hot second, and few people in the world can actually say anything bad about the ground and record-breaking film.  Needless to say, all things Black Panther has been on the tips of everyone’s tongues this week, as just about everyone in the world is still seeking out tickets and trying to go see the film for the first, or third times.

I saw this “joke” pop up on my old neighborhood’s Nextdoor account, and my first thought was “too easy.”  A city in the Metro area that’s like ~80% black wanting to call themselves “Wakanda?”  You don’t say!

But then I thought about how alternatives would have been shit like “Renaissance” or “Atlanta Heights” or something else shitty, and suddenly Wakanda doesn’t seem like such a bad option.  Not only is it ironically funny if it were officially in place, I have to imagine that just about every person who’s seen Black Panther at this point would be completely on board with it, thus eliminating the whole “you can’t change shit without us the people” conflict would be out of the equation.

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SURPRISE, SURPRISE

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t remember the exact numbers I estimated when I originally started going off on diatribes about the Braves’ new Spring Training facility that’s being built in Sarasota, Florida, but I do recall it being somewhere in the range of 40-50% more than what was estimated.  Because if there’s one reoccurring pattern in the development of stadiums is that there is a 150% chance that whatever is originally estimated, will be exceeded, and by no small amounts.

That being said, it’s about as shocking as finding out that the WWE’s Enzo Amore has been accused of sexual misconduct, that the Braves’ original estimation of somewhere around $80 million dollars for their new training grounds, has risen.

Somewhere in the revisionist history of the timeline of this unnecessary extravagance, I’m pretty sure the original price tag was set at $75 million dollars.  Apparently, prior to the start of the new year, it was revised to $100 million, and as of this morning, it’s been confirmed to have hit $110 million.  I want to say that in my earlier rants about this bullshit facility that I predicted that it would top out at around $125 million.

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Content choice paralysis

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I highly doubt it, but I wonder if I’m the only person who goes through this: I sit down to watch some streaming television, and after I open Netflix/Plex/Hulu/WWE Network, I find myself browsing and searching through these gargantuan catalogues of content, and before I know it, 45 minutes have passed, and the time I earmarked to watch some television is mostly gone.  A 60+ minute episode/movie doesn’t really fit into the schedule, and nothing I want to watch is one of those 22 minute shorts.  Ultimately, I end up watching nothing, but have added ten new things to the watchlist that I’ll inevitably ignore in the future and repeat the process all over again.

To say that there’s a wealth of content out there is an understatement.  The catalogues of crap out there are never ending, and the fact that it’s all over the internet reinforces the notion that it can be cycled in and out of circulation at the drop of a hat at any given time of the day, week, month or year.

This is why shows have such short lifespans, because the pressure to immediately succeed is so high, and failing to get an 11 out of 10 often times means cancellation, or falling by the wayside by the next avalanche of programming that’s waiting in the wings at all time. 

Frankly, it’s mind-boggling just how much stuff is out there, and I’m having a really hard time of keeping track of what’s decent, what’s not worth investing time into, and I’m finding that my standards are kind of molding into modern standards, because I’m not giving shows enough time to mature and develop, because they themselves aren’t giving themselves enough time to do such, and begin to suck, and I’m already thinking of what I could be/could have been watching instead.

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Predictions for National Championship Day

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Today is National Championship Day in honor of the College Football National Championship being played tonight.  It has a little bit more meaning this year than it has in previous years, because not only is it being played right here in Atlanta, the two teams vying for the National Championship are Georgia and Alabama, basically two teams that are within a three-hour drive from the Mercedes-Benz Stadium and can declare it their home field, based on proximity or frequency of how many games they’ve played there.

It’s supposed to rain today, and was scheduled to have already started and turned the city into an icy catastrophe but surprising nobody such has yet to occur.  It was actually a rather clear and pleasant morning drive into work today in fact.  But if it ever does rain and the extra low temperatures we’ve been getting over the last week take hold of it, it could lead to some inconveniences to people like me who, work jobs and drives to and from them.

Also, the president has also decided to grace the city with his presence for this momentous occasion, because there’s no secret he can’t resist a scene, regardless of the fact that he’s demonstrated zero interest in any sports other than his own frequent personal golfing habits, and the fact that Atlanta is a city that in all likelihood hates him passionately after he called it “crime-infested” at one point.  It’s still a major, major event with a multiplied hype behind it, and why not go for the trifecta of bombing the city with even more insanity and hoopla than showing up?

Needless to say, in a rare instance of foresight, the vast majority of Atlanta has actually decided to shut down, or at least acknowledge and/or make accommodations for the fact that today is a particularly volatile National Championship Day.  The government has mostly shut down, most companies in the heart of the city have declared half or telecommuniting days, and once Atlanta Public Schools and Fulton County decided to close in light of expected weather and traffic problems, most of the metropolitan counties have followed suit.

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