AJC > Sandy Springs > Blog > Archives > 2008 > March
March 2008
What has changed since King’s death?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When the passage of time can be marked in decades it’s always good to assess how things are going, even when the event being looked at represents a dark time.
This spring it will have been 40 years since civil rights trailblazer Dr, Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by an assassin’s bullet. Four decades later I look around and wonder are we better off. If so, by how much?
There are some obvious things that have changed for the better. We don’t see separate water fountains or restrooms for blacks and whites. Movie theaters don’t have segregated seating. Seeing African-Americans seated at a lunch counter no longer brings the police and an angry mob.
Watching the news we no longer see big-bellied redneck sheriffs turning loose vicious dogs on peaceful demonstrators. We don’t people being knocked down by the spray from a fire hose, then police in riot gear moving in and busting heads.
The obvious signs, for the most part, are gone. But are things truly better, or did we just move our distrust of each other under the surface?
For years every time Sandy Springs residents wanted a say in whether we should have our own city there were accusations that it was racially motivated. The rich white people out here didn’t want to be part of Fulton County.
Likewise the locals complained loudly how Sandy Springs was a cash cow for county services that seemed to end up in the south portion of Fulton, where “they” lived. The polite term was “reverse discrimination.”
And there aren’t too many times in this blog where at least one person doesn’t play the race card in the comments section - no matter what the topic. For some it always boils down to blaming someone with a different skin color or a different religion or the opposite gender.
Is this as good as its going to get? We live together, work together, shop together, worship together, eat together, etc. - but when something hits the fan we close ranks by race and deny we might have played a role.
If that’s the case, then the answer to my first question is no, things have not progressed much in 40 years. We did away with the overt racism, only to let it slink just beneath the surface where it continues to percolate.
Which leads to a more relevant question. At what point do we - all of us - get a belly full and cry “enough!”
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Is Sandy Springs still a ‘hot’ property?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When this blog started a few years ago one of the things we were seeing around our little town was the introduction of the McMansion phenomena — older homes razed and replaced by bigger/newer/fancier. The lot had more value than the old home built on it.
Some worried Sandy Springs might get too pricey, fretting that the character of the community would be changed. If prices went too high young families wouldn’t be able to move in. Then fate intervened.
Thanks to the mess caused by instability in the mortgage business and some other factors, like the price of gas continuing to rise, the face of Sandy Springs has not seen that radical change. At least not yet.
Our home was built in the late ‘50s, as were most of the houses within a quarter-mile radius. Within this area there are about seven new homes finished and five more under construction - all replacing homes at least 40 years old. Of those seven that are finished, four have been sold. A couple of others have been for sale now for several months.
I have no idea if those homes are getting much prospective-buyer traffic, but a house that has been for sale more than six months stands out. You can almost imagine a sign posted in the yard that reads: “Nope. Not this week.”
A builder on Ferry Drive recently invited the neighborhood to an open house as a way of showing off one of two new homes. It was a nice evening - wine, soft drinks and cocktail eats. However, I’m not so sure the event would have happened if the place had a lot of potential buyers walking through it on a daily basis.
I’m not an expert on the financial aspect of building homes on spec, and right now I don’t understand why people are laying out big money to buy older homes, knock them down and building a more expensive property. Not with the economy the way it is.
I’m not objecting to the practice - just wondering why anyone would roll the dice right now.
Most houses in our neighborhood sell for around $300,000, with the houses replacing them priced just below $1 million. Great idea, if people are buying. Bad idea when they’re not.
Is this all connected to factors like the mortgage-industry crises and rising gas prices? Or is Sandy Springs not the hot property some thought it might be.
Permalink | Comments (44) | Post your comment | Categories: Jim Osterman
Police crack down on homeless thieves in Sandy Springs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Sandy Springs Police Department recently began asking us to help them identify places around town where homeless people are living - usually thick wooded areas. The reason the police are gathering this information is because of a connection between some of the homeless population and some thefts.
Please note that I said “some” of those without a home. However, I’m waiting for the howls to come from homeless advocates, saying that group is being targeted simply because they are homeless.
So before the hysterical rhetoric begins, let’s get a few things said.
First, while not all homeless people want to be in their present circumstance, there are number who have truly made it a profession. They steal, they beg, they work the system, they have zero accountability and they put nothing back into the community. Dare I say, they give being homeless a bad name.
Second, not every homeless person is a criminal, but if there is a connection between a portion of the city’s homeless population and some thefts I’d rather bring all to the forefront so the crooks can be taken off the streets.
Third, this effort does not “target” any group, does not “single out” and group and most certainly does not “discriminate” against any group. From where I sit it looks like the police identified and are taking care of a crime problem. I doubt they will be forming goon squads to crash through the woods, assaulting anything that moves with billy clubs and tasers.
And, no, this does not make me fear that the cops will start targeting other groups, — folks of like ethnicity, religion, beliefs, sexual preference are or even red-haired journalists. This is not moving us toward living in a police state.
This is the police doing their job. There are laws being broken and right now the signs point to a segment of the homeless here in our city. Some will say that these people were compelled to steal because of their circumstance, but I don’t think alleged need is an effective defense in court.
So instead of enduring the predictable whining about persecution, can we channel that energy into apprehending the crooks, and finding a solution for those who want to get off the streets?
It is not a crime to be homeless. But homeless people, like anyone else who commit crimes, need to be swept off the street.
Permalink | Comments (25) | Categories: Jim Osterman
Are society’s values dipping lower?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Something seems a little out of kilter.
There’s been a lot of talk about a possible draft pick for the Falcons who has, at the tender age of 20, fathered two kids with two different mothers (he’s is not married to either), as well as getting into two bar scrapes. Again note that he’s 20, which is one year too young to drink in a bar.
When some publicly questioned whether Atlanta should spend a high draft pick on someone with questionable character issues the howls began. Live and let live. Who is anyone to judge?
Huh?
When party girl Paris Hilton was hauled off to jail last year the popular opinion was she was being punished because she was rich and famous. The fact she broke the law on multiple occasions may have played into it, but that wasn’t a very convenient fact to bring up.
Say what?
Somewhere along the way we’ve shaved the rough edge off of behavior that strays outside the lines of what used to be referred to as common decency.
There was a time when a sports hero was no longer a hero if it became public knowledge that he had fathered multiple children out of wedlock with multiple women. Now anyone who raises an eyebrow over such behavior is the one being criticized.
An actress who was caught driving drunk or with drugs at one time might see her career derailed, possibly forever. Now it helps promote her next movie.
I’m not suggesting anyone be placed in the stocks in town square, but have we really lost our ability to do the right thing because the consequences of doing the wrong thing are so unpalatable?
Not to mention fear of getting caught in what once was called a compromising position kept us from making lapses in judgment. Now the only thing getting compromised is our values.
Indeed, I’m guessing a lot of people reading this will have more outrage aimed at me for bringing this into question. I’d be more beloved getting a supermodel pregnant or blowing a 2.0 on a breath-a-lizer. Heck, maybe I’d get a book deal.
Does there not need to be some observance of the proprieties? Or are we not bothered to see values keeping dipping lower and lower? Is our self-esteem so shaky that taking some heat as a consequence for some of our actions is no longer allowed.
It seems for every scandal there is a pundit talking about how America is such a forgiving country. Forgiving? Heck, some times it looks like we just don’t care any more.
When did doing the wrong thing become so right?
Permalink | Comments (76) | Categories: Jim Osterman
Nothing to love about The Love Shack
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sex had a good run last week - as a topic in the news, I mean.
A church in a Florida publicly encouraged its married members to engage on conjugal gymnastics every day for a month. It had something to do with celebrating the joys of matrimonial life — and I’m guessing a few couples may have bolted for home before the offering plate was passed.
Closer to home, one of our sister cities to the north won a round in an ongoing legal battle to chase The Love Shack, purveyor of so-called adult merchandise, out of town. I smell an appeal in the air and once again wish I’d gone to law school because the lawyers are the true winners in these things. But back to sex.
By my count we have one strip club and two adult bookstores in the confines of our little burg, and this mightily offends many of our citizens. I’m offended as well, but for a different reason than most.
It offends me that there is enough local trade for these places to be profitable enough to remain open. Want to usher businesses like this out of Sandy Springs? Don’t dump it in the city council’s lap and hope they can concoct some law. Don’t picket or circulate petitions. Don’t form a coalition of concerned clergy and feminist groups. The solution is much easier.
Starve the rascals to death.
We may be loath to admit this, if there weren’t enough of us slapping down our dollars in these stores and clubs they wouldn’t exist. And, yes, I understand that not everyone patronizing these places is a Sandy Springsteen, but guess what? They aren’t staying open because people are coming from all over the metro area to get their thrills in our city.
In case you haven’t noticed, Sandy Springs is not the only place in metro Atlanta where you can buy sexually explicit videos or watch ladies dancing naked. So if these places are showing a profit the bulk of it is coming from the locals.
And until we shut off the faucet these places will be alive and well on Roswell Road. Maybe if we learned to respect each other, and have a little more reverence for sex, it would be a good start. Maybe then these places would lose their allure.
Perhaps that Florida pastor has it right — we’d be better served if sex was taken out of the retail/entertainment arena and put it into church. I’m not sure it necessarily belongs there, but it would be a big step up from where
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