Tag: ohatlanta

Atlantans would rather have a ghetto hole than a city?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

TL;DR: protestors try to convince the City of Atlanta to not go forward with a $2 billion dollar proposal to develop the Gulch

For those of you who don’t live in Atlanta, or live in the metro area and are clueless anyway, the Gulch is this giant parcel of land that currently exists as a big empty parking lot that sits two stories lower than the rest of Downtown Atlanta, because long ago the city decided for some reason to build above everything, or maybe they just wanted to keep the streets nice and level.

The bottom line is that the Gulch is a gigantic eyesore of space that exists really, really close to some major Atlanta landmarks, like Centennial Olympic Park, Mercedes Benz Arena, the CNN Center and Philips State Farm Arena.  It’s basically where cars park to get broken into, or where the drivers get harassed, buy drugs, assaulted, murdered or all of the above.  It’s undesirable, looks like shit, and is in desperate need to be taken over by developers and actually developed.

So when some smarmy hot-shot California developers come into town and propose some $2 billion dollar idea to develop the Gulch, you’d think there would be people that might actually be excited by the promise of the City of Atlanta gentrifying yet another shitty area and trying to make it look nice, right?

Fuck no, of course not.  Much like the Beltline, Mercedes-Benz Arena, ScumTrust Park, there are a ton of people who show up, all up in arms, about how it’s a bad idea, and how it’s going to price people out and how some rich developers are going to get richer at the expense of the poor.  Now in their defense, the city most certainly didn’t need Mercedes-Benz Arena or ScumTrust Park, but the Beltline most definitely succeeded in both beautifying the areas it’s been developed in AND pricing out the poors while the rich got richer.

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I give it five minutes before it’s used inappropriately

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

TL;DR: the City of Atlanta announces the launch of Fix-It ATL, a website where people can report issues such as potholes, beautification needs, and other infrastructure problems in need of attention

Here’s the thing – if they had pretty much said that it was specifically for potholes, this might actually not be used inappropriately.  But since they use the phrases “beautification” and “other” in the description of how this service could be utilized, that’s why I give it five minutes before Fix-It ATL is going to be used inappropriately.

Because people are trolls, dicks, racists and just a whole bunch of generally terrible people.

I’d love to be on the receiving end of the computers that are in charge of Fix-It ATL, when people start reporting things such as like, “too many black people on the Beltline,” or “a pothole on Ponce de Leon… next to all the illegal Mexicans waiting outside of Home Depot,” among many other terrible things that people are going to report, because they’re terrible people, they know they can get away with it, or all of the above.

But if it were just potholes, then the potential for terrible shit is somewhat mitigated, but I wouldn’t put it past people to figure out ways to make things as corrupt as possible, because the world is full of shitheads.  The idea is good, and I certainly hope that among the fifty pounds of crap that is bound to flow into their inboxes, there are some actual constructive reports and requests that might actually make Atlanta just a little bit nicer.

The flipside is that the corrupt city doesn’t really have the ability for deniability anymore.  With a service like this firmly in place, when people report issues like potholes and things that need repair, the city can’t play dumb or deny it was ever received if a service like this is launched, which will create a nice little digital paper trail for things to be requested of the city.  The idea is really nice, but now the pressure is on for the city to actually follow through with their claims, lest this become yet another bullet in the list of broken promises that the city continues to claim is going to happen.

Different Braves, same shit

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Honestly, I’m just glad that the Braves won a game.  I’d have been very not mad, just disappointed had the Braves gone into the playoffs and gotten swept and embarrassed like the Rockies or Indians did, and at least they can hang a single laurel that they put up a modicum of a fight before the inevitable Atlanta tradition of getting bounced from the playoffs came to fruition.

I haven’t really written much, if anything about the Braves (baseball team, not ownership) this season, because really there wasn’t really that much to talk about.  Sure, the team of the future arrived a little bit earlier than schedule, and jump started life into the franchise, powering them to a surprise division title and an actual playoff berth.  But there was one part disbelief that the team would actually achieve success and that between the Nationals or Phillies, they’d have gotten upended in September and miss the playoffs, and there was another part that simply didn’t want to tempt the laws of fate and risk jinxing anything, when the team was going so well.

But either way, when the race for all the divisions were settled, and it was apparent that the Braves were in, I can’t say that I was really at all that excited, and this just might be the sentiment of all fans of sports that live in the Atlanta area.  I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I can’t help but feel that the curse of Atlanta sports is just too strong, and as exciting as the 2018 Braves were, were just too young, and really achieved as much success as they did, heavily on the notion that their divisional rivals were all just that bad.  I didn’t just predict that the Braves were going to get bounced in the first round, I’d have put actual money on it, because that’s simply what the Braves do.

Seriously, the Braves haven’t made it out of the first round of the playoffs since 2001, and they’ve made the playoffs eight times since then.  That’s eight times getting bounced in the first round, and almost always, by a team that was seeded lower than they were.  And that’s just the Braves; as far as other Atlanta and Georgia sports are concerned, most of us here remember the epic historic Super Bowl 28-3 collapse of the Falcons.  The Georgia Bulldogs proceeded to lose the National Championship in similar fashion months later.  The Atlanta United soccer team made it to the playoffs in their first year, only to get bounced in the first round by the lower seed, and even the Atlanta Dream WNBA team made it to the WNBA Finals, only to get swept.

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The news acts like this isn’t the oldest trick in the book

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Hardly news: East Cobb mom busted for smuggling in alcohol through her kid’s sippy cup and getting blackout drunk during a matinee

A long time ago when I lived on the south end of town, I remember having lunch at a Chili’s in Peachtree City. While there, the adjacent table was occupied by a mom and like three kids, all of which were different ages, ranging from like 1-4 years old, and naturally, they were loud and rambunctious, with mom having pretty much no control over them whatsoever.

There was a great feeling of relief when they got up and left, because finally there would be some peace and calm to eat to; but not even a full five minutes after they had left, did mom come rushing frantically back into the restaurant, and to the table. The way she was scanning the table made me wonder if she had perhaps dropped her keys or cell phone or something of any actual value based on the urgency plastered on her face.

But then she grabbed one of the plastic kid’s cups that was still on the table, emptied its contents into a nearby water glass, and then promptly grabbed what was left of her margarita and poured the remnants of it into the kid’s cup, replaced the lid and walked out the restaurant as cool as the cucumber in the back of the crisper closest to the refrigeration coil.

It was a true veteran maneuver I’d witnessed, because the savvy in which she pulled this off, there’s no mistaking that this was something that she’s done numerous times.

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FREE BEEF 2 I MEAN 3

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Y’know, I imagine anyone that knows me and my fascination with trucks that spill food all over Georgia highways might have thought I’d have been beside myself with excitement over the news of this wild story of a truck crashing on I-285, releasing nearly a hundred cows onto the busiest highway intersection in the city.  And for like two seconds, the thought is knee-jerk amusing, but then I come to the realization that unlike all of the other times where some dumbass truck driver overturns and spills their cargo all over the road, these are actually live animals, not processed consumables, and suddenly it’s not really that funny to me anymore.

Sure, every social media comic has a one-liner or a pun or fifty to share with the internet, hoping to get anybody to notice them, but the longer this story unfolded, and the facts began to emerge about how several cows died on impact of the crash, but then many more were running around wild, likely scared out of their minds at the chaos, it just kind of made me sad.

Now I’m not going to deny the fact that I love to eat meat, and just the other day, I pigged out on a litany of beef cuts at a Korean bbq, but I still have empathy for living things, even if their eventual destiny is to become the same beef that’s on the menu at the restaurants I go to.  Frankly, I feel a little better knowing that the cows that become the beef that I enjoy don’t have to live lives where they’re traumatized and put through a wild goose chase before they’re re-captured and sent to die anyway.  I’m not saying I want all the animals that become the meat I eat to be lavished in grapes and living in luxury, but I’d rather not them go through lives of torture either.

When I looked through some of the photos of the cows running around the Metro Atlanta area, there was one photo where the cops in the background were laughing; I get that it’s a unique situation and given the right mood and frame of mind, I might’ve thought it was funny too, but today it kind of irked me, because the cow that they had managed to wrangle was a fortunate survivor of the wreck, but really it’s just being accounted for because their meat and/or their milk has some money to make for someone else.

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Too easy

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You don’t say – Atlanta rapper who goes under the name “Young Thug” is arrested and faces up to eight felony charges

Man, who could have seen this coming?  A guy who goes by the name of Young Thug, arrested for doing the kinds of things that young thugs are known for doing, like having drugs, threatening people, distributing drugs, among all other charges.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about this guy, because shockingly, he’s had run-ins with the law several times over, over the last few years, but it does not seem apparent that regardless of how much his rap credibility increases, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s still subject to do dumb shit under his own volition.

I think the funniest part about this is that it all started with getting pulled over for suspicion of too-dark window tint.  It’s one of the most ticky-tack bullshit violations to be pulled over for in the first place, and no doubt that there was some racial profiling involved with the cop’s decision to pull him over in the first place.  Don’t get me wrong, I see cars all the time with window tint that’s got to obviously be illegal, so I’m a little surprised to see someone actually getting pulled over for it in the first place.

Lo and behold, it turns out that the car is driven by a minor celebrity, and holy shit did he have a lot of drugs in his possession at that time.  Naturally, there’s a gun in the car too, because how can anyone be a young thug without having a firearm as well?  The legality of its ownership is never mentioned, although one can easily speculate.

Either way, it’s the shocker of the century that Young Thug is arrested; again, and it’s not one of those things where anyone can even pull the race card.  The guy had a car that raised red flags, and upon further inspection, it turned out that there were plenty of reasons to arrest the guy.  It’s not like he’s actually going to serve any time, because if the guy can seemingly get back out on the streets after skipping out on warrants and threatening the lives of other people, it’ll be a short stay in incarceration before he’s back out on the streets, and probably not long afterward before he’s busted again for some stupid shit.

Not sure if this is a good thing to disclose or not

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Long story short: City of South Fulton Renaissance Wakanda City of South Fulton’s entire law enforcement division led entirely by African-American women; publicly acknowledged as “black girl magic”

Yeah, if I were still living in South Fulton county, I’d be happier if the law enforcement arm they weren’t doing photoshoots and were actually doing some work.  I’m not entirely sure this is such a great story to break currently, because for those who don’t really follow what’s going down in the City of South Fulton, the whole place is kind of in shambles, infrastructure wise.

The fact that they can’t even land on a name for the city goes to show just how disorganized and lacking in structure the whole place is in general, but the law enforcement is a whole other story.  Seldom does a day goes by where the front page of the AJC doesn’t have some sort of story that contains the words “shooting,” “killed,” “crime,” “South Fulton,” or any combination of them on it, because the crime is that out of control down there and continuously getting worse.

It’s the primary reason why I sold my house and moved away, and not a day goes by whenever I see a crime story emerging from down there, that I’m so glad to have gotten out of there when I did, even if it meant taking a loss on the house and going through a little bit of separation anxiety of parting ways with my first owned home, even if it was in a rapidly deteriorating area.

And as I’ve said numerous times, I’m still subscribed to the Nextdoor community online for my old neighborhood, because it’s giving me constant reminders and daily insight to just how much South Fulton is continuing to spiral downward.  I can see first-hand from people that still live there just how much they’re frustrated and exasperated with the escalating crime problems down there, and this is exactly why I’m not the least impressed by articles about how South Fulton’s law enforcement is helmed entirely by African-American women.

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