Couple of things
- Ahhhh ... a Banner-Herald editorial on downtown bars that only Doug Lowry could love. First off, let's be clear about one thing ... the bars which violated the fire code should face the appropriate fines and/or punishments and make the necessary changes. However, it's quite a leap in logic to suggest we should start 'yanking' licenses because of this thing, and Hillary agrees with me. If you keep leaving the toilet seat up, does that mean the government should deny you bathroom privileges? I know it's trendy these days to pile it on the downtown bar owners, but let's keep it all in perspective here.
- Charles is tongue-in-cheek, and my bet is that it sails over the heads of a lot of people ... Norm Weatherby included. Speaking of Mr. Weatherby, I think we should start a 'Weatherby Watch' ... this dude gets a ton of xenophobic letters in the paper.
- This really seems to be a non-story to me, peppered with random facts and figures from other places in the country, placed high in the story, designed to get everyone all up in arms about how safe our streets are. However, if you read down, you see both the president of BikeAthens and Athens-Clarke County Commissioner Elton Dodson saying things are going pretty well, actually.
- Speaking of Dodson, he offered a quote for the ages in this article in The Red & Black:
Chuck Jones, who recently dropped out of the District 9 commission race, called for local government to increase its efforts to include students. He could not be reached for comment.
On his Web site, he said he hoped a University student would run for local government in the future with the support of a unified student body.
Jones was critical of the moratorium because he said it unfairly targeted students.
'That moron is twisting the issues,' Dodson said of Jones.
- Charles is tongue-in-cheek, and my bet is that it sails over the heads of a lot of people ... Norm Weatherby included. Speaking of Mr. Weatherby, I think we should start a 'Weatherby Watch' ... this dude gets a ton of xenophobic letters in the paper.
- This really seems to be a non-story to me, peppered with random facts and figures from other places in the country, placed high in the story, designed to get everyone all up in arms about how safe our streets are. However, if you read down, you see both the president of BikeAthens and Athens-Clarke County Commissioner Elton Dodson saying things are going pretty well, actually.
- Speaking of Dodson, he offered a quote for the ages in this article in The Red & Black:
Chuck Jones, who recently dropped out of the District 9 commission race, called for local government to increase its efforts to include students. He could not be reached for comment.
On his Web site, he said he hoped a University student would run for local government in the future with the support of a unified student body.
Jones was critical of the moratorium because he said it unfairly targeted students.
'That moron is twisting the issues,' Dodson said of Jones.
posted by Jmac at 8:50 AM
13 Comments:
Charles is tongue-in-cheek, and my bet is that it sails over the heads of a lot of people
And the sad/scary thing is, there are probably a lot of people who agree with his letter in a completely literal, non-ironic way.
The following is my response to the Red and Black article - it was written by me and me, alone. Heidi did not even see it until I had submitted it as a rebuttal:
Mr. Hughes,
Your article entitled "ACC officials, students don't see eye to eye' of September 29th (http://www.redandblack.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/09/29/451c8638900b8) contains a few false and misleading statements about the actions of the Mayor and Commission.
1) The "definition of family" is part of the zoning code and has been in place since before the city and county governments unified in 1990. Even before unification, the separate governments each had the restriction as part of their zoning codes and this was maintained in the zoning codes of the new unified government. Additionally, this "definition of family" zoning restriction applies ONLY to RS zones and is found in a great number of cities across the country. Your statement that “A rental ordinance passed in 2003 allowed no more than two unrelated people to live together" is factually incorrect.
2) The "Anti-Cruising" ordinance does NOT restrict persons who are legitimately seeking a destination or a parking spot downtown. This ordinance was designed specifically to protect pedestrians from drivers who are only driving in the downtown area with no intention of stopping or arriving at any destination. The ordinance addressed a problem that was being caused, almost exclusively, by NON-STUDENTS who were simply circling around downtown in their cars for entertainment and adding to congestion as well as endangering pedestrians (most of whom were students). Your assertions and interpretations are, in fact, inaccurate and misleading.
3) Possession of alcohol by anyone under the legal age is a violation of a STATE law. The fact that the UGA Campus police are enforcing that law more stridently is not a matter that involves the ACC government and the inclusion of this in your article is superfluous, at best.
4) The "moratorium on the construction of fraternity houses last spring" was necessary to allow all the stakeholders to meet and discuss an inadvertent loop-hole in the zoning ordinances. The intention was to make all such institutional group home use a special use permit to protect single family neighborhoods. In fact, the zoning code had always contained a provision that made all such “group homes” as well as schools, churches, day-care centers, etc. a special use designation but, when the zoning code was re-written (more than 4 years ago and prior to the election of the current Mayor and Commission), this designation was omitted due to a clerical error that went unnoticed until the recent challenge. The Mayor and Commission rightly responded to this challenge such that a simple clerical error would not create an unwarranted and unplanned disruption to an entire neighborhood. Again, this is quite common in cities around the country and applies to many others uses than simply fraternities and sororities.
Finally, a reading of the ordinances of Athens-Clarke County would reveal that there is no mention, anywhere, of UGA students. All ordinances are applied in the same manner to every person. It seems rather odd to me that each time the Mayor and Commission adopts an ordinance to control undesirable and/or dangerous behaviors, the Red and Black writes about it as being "anti-student" - that amounts to a declaration that the students are the cause of the undesirable behaviors by your newspaper. No one in Athens or the Athens-Clarke County government believes that students are the cause of all the problems in Athens – why do you? It begs the question: "Why is the Red and Black so anti-student?"
Al Davison
Chuck Jones -- THAT Moron.
Too bad he's not running any more; we'll have to save the slogan for next time around.
Darren
And I am the one who gets accused of name calling? Anyone want to explain that one?
That you are accused of name calling does not exclude others also being accused of name calling.
I think the criticism directed towards you, Chuck, are not so much that you use names for other people, but rather that you frame your political message in terms of your own participation in being or affiliation with those who are being victimized. Being a victim, however, is not at all a position of strength for a political platform. It is not supporting the underdog or appealing to the Rudy in everyone. It is, simply, to be an impotent and useless victim campaigning on the basis of one's own ineffectiveness, one's own ineptness, one's own irrelevance. Again, that is hardly a way to rally people around you, and when the crowds who might have supported you fail to show up, it is further degradation to accuse other people for this failure.
I think there is a very important difference to recognize in what occurs between, say, the defense of derided Republican conservatives and the rallying of poor and disenfranchised in the more politically active times of the twentieth century: while both fully recognize that there is a struggle in place whose oppression needs to be overcome, only one brings hope to the people by producing for them a good they can pursue apart from the oppression itself. King, for example, put forward that what will overcome the racial animosities throughout the nation is a revaluation of poverty itself through shared, collective economic. He did not preach constantly about how the white man with Bull Connor holds down the black man with dogs and firehoses, but he did not ignore it. What he did preach constantly was the power to be found in shared community, a power that resisted from within the insinuating snares catching us believing the lie of our own individual impotency.
Perhaps if you were able to understand the just use of rhetoric, maybe spending some time reading Aristotle or Spinoza (he says being dead serious), you would be, yourself, a benefit to the Republican party and a figure whose criticisms took on a new vitality and a new deadly charm.
Nobody, in the end, values underdogs because they are weak, but because underdogs reveal that anyone, at any time, can become powerful enough to bring about change. That is a far more hopeful message than accusing people of calling you a name, accusing people of refusing you a place, accusing people of being biased. It is all the more revealing of one's weakness by giving it a history, but all the more revealing of power to carry on with the weakness regardless.
In short: there is the old saying by that man, "Power is perfected in weakness." I think the man was right.
I understand the criticism directed toward me, but my comment is not about criticism. Elton's rambling is not criticism, it is gratuitous personal attacking and name calling. That is not criticism, it is immature and classless behavior.
Anyway - Al is right, the ACC is not against students. The Commission spits in students' faces at every opportunity, but it is not "against" students, good heavens no!!
I see that I cast my pearls unwisely.
To be honest, I don't really know what you have with Dodson or what he has with you, except that I know that you said you have a new opportunity coming your way. The more clever way to have played this would have been to point out that there is something dangerous enough about you to "the establishment" that he felt the need to comment in a disparaging way even though you have left the race. That way, you show not only your own confidence in your views, but you reveal just how odd that kind of statement is in your absence (just as it is odd for people to continue to talk about Clinton's indiscretions many long years of Bush later). Instead, calling it "immature and classless behavior" just keeps this at the level of elementary school politics.
Continue in that way, and people will doubt even more your capacity to act and think as is necessary in the political systems of adults. I am not the first person to point this out to you, Chuck. I will not be the last, at least as long as you wish to present yourself in the public space as someone interested in the political side of the public.
Of course, you don't have to listen to anything that I say. I do not know Athens as well as others. I read old books and play video games. You, having done the risky thing of entering into the political scene, are probably better aware of what should be said, how one should act, and when one should speak in order to persuade others to—not just your position—but to your friendship.
I'm sure you have your supporters. My suggestions were meant to garner you some more, if you wished to have them.
There was once a time when students in the United States really were dangerous. Not because they drove drunk or littered or urinated in public or slept eight to three bedrooms, but because they had convictions and energy and the will to see fruition and creation. If you really do see yourself as championing the political force of students, you must stop this tiring appeal to their victimization. Victims do not rise up: heros and heroines do.
And I have never seen you give any reason to this student, and the students I know, a reason to believe themselves to have that kind of strength.
There. That's a criticism.
"I see that I cast my pearls unwisely."
Charles, I love that letter, I love this quote, I love the talk of underdogs, and I love you.
Very reasonable points. You are absolutely right; your criticism is very constructive and very well taken. I'll learn from your words.
It is kind of strange that people who do not even live in my districts see the need to attack me even after I have left the race. Nevertheless, I do not really feel the need to respond to Dodson's statement. I prefer to keep things on an adult level, as befits a responsible member of the Bar.
Thank you for your helpful comments.
It is kind of strange that people who do not even live in my districts see the need to attack me even after I have left the race. Nevertheless, I do not really feel the need to respond to Dodson's statement. I prefer to keep things on an adult level, as befits a responsible member of the Bar.
But Chuck, you ask why they 'attack' you, yet you built your campaign around targeting people outside your district. Hell, even in your withdrawal statement you call drop the phrase 'ultra-elitist Cobbham Neighborhood Association' despite the fact they are outside your district.
You started the attacks, yet seem geniunely surprised when these attacked groups fired back. It's this absurd disconnect from reality which makes us question your legitimacy.
I'm glad I appear genuine, though surprise was not the emotion I intended to convey. It was amusement.
I was amused at this because I am out of the race. If I were still a candidate, I suppose it would be legitimate to criticize me (though I certainly think it could be done on a mature level without the sort of name calling that more befits a middle school kid than a professional man). However, what is the point of whining about me now?
The only reason, as polus... pointed out, is that Elton still views me as a threat to the power establishment in Athens.
Perhaps he should.
Al,
Actually, the cruising ordinance DOES still apply to people seeking a destination or a parking spot downtown, if they are not a resident of the no-cruising zone. Athens-Clarke County, Georgia, Code of Ordinances § 3-3-64(d)(4) (Municode 2006). If you thought it was less onerous, well, that's the trouble with the M&C's ordinance of the month club style of operation. Each new ordinance has unintended consequences. For example, the sidewalk sign ordinance was supposed to protect blind people using the sidewalks, yet supposedly Angelo's received a $1000 ticket under this ordinance for having a sign on a duly licensed sidewalk cafe table.
I have chosen to not submit anything to the Red and Black anymore because their editing process is very irresponsible and potentially damaging to the contributor. There were huge problems with that article, though, and they very much needed some setting straight, if R&B editors are indeed capable of receiving any criticism at all, which I highly doubt because not a single student there has responded to my complaints or apologized when confronted.
To be sure, Chuck, I said that you could say that bit about being a danger in order to be more clever. I did not intend that to be what I think was his reason to say what he did not say (as we have since learned that he did not say what he was reported to say).
Water, bridges.
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