Putting the "prick" in bishopric

Did anyone else spot this little tidbit in the AJC's coverage of the passing of Coretta Scott King?

Her body was expected back in Atlanta early today aboard a private aircraft owned by Eddie Long, bishop of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.

Why does a minister need a private jet? Only heaven and Bishop Long's accountants know for sure.

But I'm just gonna go ahead and assume that it's another one of the nifty perks he gets for running the Bishop Eddie Long Ministries Inc. charity.

Bishop Eddie Long Ministries Inc is a tax-exempt charity established to help the needy and spread the gospel.

According to a September 2005 report in the AJC, however, the largest recipient of charity from Bishop Eddie Ministries Inc. was, you guessed it, Bishop Eddie Long -- to the tune of $3.07 million between 1997 and 2000 alone.



It's good to be the bishop.

Political Humor Tonight At The Five Spot

Tonight the Five Spot in Little Five Points is hosting a State Of The Union Address viewing.

While President Bush yammers on about how we're "making good progress" a group of local stand-ups will provide running commentary.

Will it be funny? I don't know. I'm just so happy at the thought of comedians joking about something relevant that I'm ready to grade on a curve.

One of the participants will be Brian Bannon, the smartest, sharpest and most reliably funny local comic I've seen.

NY Times Ranks Atlanta Attractions

Today's New York Times has a graphical feature titled U.S. Correspondents' Guide New York Times writers share their favorite haunts in 10 U.S. cities.

The Times' Shaila Dawan wrote the feature's Atlanta section. Watershed is her favorite restaurant. Lullwater Conservation Park is her favorite place to walk. Macon is her favorite getaway.

The full list is worth checking out, if only to get a sense of what kind of impression New York Times-reading Americans have of our city. It's probably also a handy guide if you're entertaining out-of-towners.

If you don't have the time or inclination to mess around with the graphics, it's also available as a PDF.

Wine and Clove Cigarettes, Part 2

In my last post, I wrote about the new Actor's Express musical Love Jerry and the protest against led by Nancy Yoder.

I haven't seen the play and probably won't. I'm only really interested in the debate about it.

Ms. Yoder responded to the post and, more importantly, has written a position paper on the play which I have posted in the comments section of this post.

Wine and Clove Cigarettes

There's a new musical at Actor's Express called Love Jerry by Megan Gogerty.

The play has drawn praise and criticism for depicting its child-molesting main character as an actual, multi-faceted person rather than just an evil caricature.

Among those praising the play are Prevent Child Abuse Georgia Inc's statewide coordinator, Sally A. Thigpen,

"It's a story that's played out in millions of homes everyday. Megan has written a script that just pulls the lid off the issue, " said Thigpen, as quoted in today's AJC.

The loudest critic of the play is a Lawrenceville woman named Nancy Yoder.

"We need a clear message that this will not be tolerated," Yoder said, also quoted in the today's AJC. Yoder picketed outside the theater's world premiere last night.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, of course, but before giving any creedence to Yoder's opinion, keep something in mind -- Yoder was picketing the premier -- meaning she was picketing a play that she hadn't actually seen.

What sort of person pickets a play she hasn't yet seen?

The answer to that question is revealed at the end of Wendell Brock's excellent story about the whole hubbub in today's AJC.

Yoder said she will continue to protest but that she thinks her message will be lost on Actor's Express patrons. She said she fears some Midtown residents, "smoking clove cigarettes" and drinking wine, will sit in their homes talking about how great the play is.

(Correction: I misread the AJC story and said in the first version of this post that Yoder didn't see the play. I apologize to Yoder and to anyone who read the first, uncorrected post).

She used to live here

She used to live here. She doesn't any more*.

Cat Power (real name: Chan Marshall) has a new album out today. It's called The Greatest. I don't have it yet, but I plan to buy it after hearing the gorgeous and melancholy title track (Cat Power, melancholy?). Matador Records has posted the song on their web site as a free download.

Listen to this MP3 of "The Greatest" by Cat Power from the album The Greatest.

(I just read a blurb in Mojo magazine saying that she still, in fact, lives in Atlanta. Oh, well.)

Certainly

Certainly there was a less funny way to word this headline.

Sure beats man milk.

(Buford Hwy near Shallowford)

Diet secrets!

This has nothing to do with Atlanta, but . . .



"I eat whenver I'm hungry, usually five small meals a day,"
-Lindsay Lohan on how she maintains her "bikini bod", as quoted in the January 16, 2006 issue of US.

"I was sick. Everyone was scared. And I was scared too. I had people sit me down and say, 'You're going to die if you don't take care of yourself.'"
-Lindsay Lohan on her bulimia, as quoted in the February 2006 issue of Vanity Fair.

Nelson's Mandala

This is from Eyedrum's web site. Emphasis mine.

Opening reception.
Small Gallery: Nick Nelson.
through January 28th.

An installation consisting of 4 large wall mounted mandalas created from phototransfers on scotch tape, flowers, and wall drawings. Included in the installation is Asphodel, part of a previous show in Memphis composed of 3000 photo transfers of a single flower.

Is that like Police Cops?

This car was parked illegally on Auburn Avenue on New Year's Eve.

Don't ticket me -- I'm the Security Police.

Not a racist?

Today's New York Times SportsSunday features a great story about Bobby Grier.

Playing for the University of Pittsburgh in 1956, Grier was the first African-American to play in the Sugar Bowl.

Pitt's opponent in that game was Georgia Tech. Grier's presence on the Pitt squad was such an affront to segregationism that Georgia's then governor, the late Marvin Griffin, actually demanded that Georgia Tech pull out of the Sugar Bowl in protest.

"The South stands at Armageddon," Griffin said in a telegram to Georgia's Board of Regents, detailing his request that teams in the state's university system not participate in events in which races were mixed on the field or in the stands.

"The battle is joined. We cannot make the slightest concession to the enemy in this dark and lamentable hour of struggle."

Black people and white people playing football together will bring on Armageddon? Alrighty.

Believe it or the most bizarre part of the story is not the quotations from the governor's rant, but rather, his son's downright bizarre attempts to whitewash them today.

Sam Griffin Jr., Gov. Griffin's son, is the publisher and editor of The Post-Seachlight newspaper in Bainbridge.

Referring to his father's actions:

Sam Griffin Jr. said his father was opposed to Georgia Tech's playing in the game as a matter of upholding segregation laws. If he had not, Griffin Jr. said, his father's critics would have panned him.

"It was a gotcha either way," said Griffin Jr., who edits and publishes The Post-Searchlight newspaper in Bainbridge, Ga. "It was one of those things like, 'Are you still beating your wife?' There wasn't a whole lot he could do about it."

Griffin Jr. added: "No one was going to get elected back then who didn't run on that type of a platform. He was not a racist. I don't know if you can understand that or not. A segregationist believes in segregation, equal but separate. It was the way things were. It had been that way for 100 years."

I don't expect someone to disown or trash his father, but how can someone honestly say that that Gov. Griffin was not a racist?

If you're the governor of American state and you loudly stick-up for support a racist political agenda, then DING-DING-DING! that makes you a racist.

"No one was going to get elected back then who didn't run on that type of a platform."

That doesn't mean Gov. Griffin wasn't a racist. It simply means that he was an unprincipled man who promoted a racist agenda in part so that he could get elected.

"There wasn't a whole lot he could do about it."

Yeah, it's not like he was governor or anything.

How bizarre.