Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Couple of things

- We're going to see a mighty interesting showdown over the Jittery Joe's parking situation between the mayor/staff and the Athens-Clarke County Commission. There are lots of interesting angles to consider here, and I've got some thoughts to flesh out and some information to sift through, but this promises to be a fun one to watch.

- Related to that, here are Athens-Clarke County District Nine Commissioner Kelly Girtz's comments to me on the matter

- Gosh, this is stunning, isn't it? I mean, you make foolish acquisitions, overextend your lines of credit and, upon filing for bankruptcy, publically say it won't impact the employment situation of your company ... and then you go impact 4,200 workers in the Southeast and keep a steady process of shutting down your facilities.

- Via Lee Becker, Esther Porter was named volunteer executive director of the Keep Oconee Beautiful Commission. I've heard good things about Porter, and I admire anyone willing to tackle a challenge like that in a volunteer capacity, but I have serious doubts about the long-term effectiveness of this arrangement. Full-time jobs require full-time compensation, and that includes the non-profit world. And while volunteers bring a level of energy and enthusiasm to the arena, maintaining that passion and engagement is a much more complicated challenge ... particularly if you're tasked with actually running the program.

- I'm just flat-out unclear of the reason to lambast David Letterman. For starters, from a legal perspective, he wasn't married and, therefore, was not having an affair with anyone. From an emotional perspective, it's obvious he corrected his ways many years ago, reconciled with his then-girlfriend, now-wife and has a loving family with him. The need by a partisan hack/culture warrior like Cal Thomas to lecture him is, well, pathetic.