But, there’s no mistake. Bankruptcy seems endemic to the Golden Isles, even though, until recently, entrepreneurs at least went through the motions of trying to avoid it. So, for example, the financial situation of the Jekyll Island Club, which caused them to default on the taxes they owed the state, is described thusly:

The Revenue Commissioner, M E Thompson, wanted to purchase one of Georgia’s barrier islands and open it to the public as a state park. Finally, on June 2, 1947, the state purchased the island through a condemnation order for $675,000 (or approximately $5,563,416 in 2003 dollars).

And the first time the properties, that eventually evolved into the Sea Island Company holdings from their original acquisition by Major Pierce Butler soon after his wife’s death in 1790, fell under the auctioneer’s gavel in consequence of his grandson’s profligacy and mismanagement the event was recorded thusly:

Pierce Butler (Mease) squandered a fortune estimated at $700,000, but was saved from bankruptcy by the March 2–3, 1859 sale of his 436 slaves at Ten Broeck Racetrack, outside Savannah, Georgia — the largest single slave auction in American history.

So, technically speaking, there was no bankruptcy a hundred and fifty years ago, but there is one now and the effect on those who labored to make the enterprise profitable is much the same – family disruption and economic hardship. One thing — it’s not is a surprise. The debacle that is now Sea Island did not happen over night. One could see it coming. I saw it coming.

When I moved to St. Simons Island in 1993, the Sea Island appendage, which one accessed via a rather short causeway over a marsh or by wading across the mouth of the Black Banks River at very low tide, was “protected” by a largely unmanned guard house. Presumably, that served as a check point to be activated when the various presidents (Eisenhower, George H.W. Bush, et alia) visited, to insure that trespassers didn’t venture near. Though later the presidents’ stay at the Cloister was commemorated with a plaque on a tree dedicated to their honor and pointed to with some pride by the locals. I have not checked to see if the eminences at the G-8 Summit in 2004 were similarly honored.

Ten years earlier, Sea Island was the very model of “conspicuous consumption,” a derogatory phrase coined by Thorstein Veblen, with whose assessment I don’t agree. While I would happily do away with the designation of “consumers” entirely, if consumption there has to be, then I’d much prefer it to be of the “look, but don’t touch” kind practiced by the host of pilgrims and tourists in church and commercial tour buses who visited Sea Island and had a look around. That’s because I have no quarrel with people accumulating wealth and then hiring artists and craftsmen to create and build for everyone’s delight what most people have neither the talent nor time to manage and maintain. Appreciation for the beautiful is the best kind of consumption there is.

Referring to tourists as pilgrims may seem strange, but there were a significant number of visitors apparently drawn to the Golden Isles of Georgia in search of spiritual sustenance and contact with their roots, very likely including the descendants of Neptune Small in whose honor the park at the southern end of St. Simons Island, next to what used to be the Retreat Plantation, is named. Being able to view and even touch the tabby ruins of the hospital, in which both Neptune’s mother and his sisters cared for the slave population on Retreat, proved an inspiration to people who had no interest in playing golf at the Sea Island course that now sits on the edge of St. Simons Sound.

Visitors and island residents enjoyed the annual spring garden tour of Sea Island, as well as the opportunity to visit the studios and workshops of the artists resident in the cottages. And, of course, the historical novels of Eugenia Price had sparked interest in the area, drawing writers to conferences from far and wide.

Perhaps the first sign that change was afoot were the notices on the island’s main road that tour buses were permitted to go no further and needed to turn around long before they reached the end. The “no parking” signs along each access point to the beach seemed superfluous since, compared to the magnificent East Beach on St. Simons, the narrow Sea Island beach had little to recommend it, except to the occasional horseback riders and the drowned bodies and other detritus brought back by the tide. The signage was unnecessarily unfriendly.

The Shops at Sea Island, a new shopping center with a movie house built on St. Simons near the causeway to Sea Island were a welcome addition. As is typical of high-end merchandisers everywhere, better quality at less cost made the Shops doubly attractive and residents from the mainland soon found it worth while to do weekly shopping on the island. Also welcome, from an environmental perspective, was the appearance of mini buses and vans to shuttle employees to Sea Island from a parking lot near the newly built shopping facilities and the company headquarters. That the ultimate agenda was to transform Sea Island into a gated community wasn’t obvious at first. Only that the employees’ vehicles were to be parked off-site. Now “gated” seems to be the official designation.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution story on the bankruptcy explains:

The company, Glynn County’s largest private employer, controls the gated Sea Island community with its famed five-star hotel, the Cloister. The small barrier island is dotted with more than 500 private homes, which are called “cottages” even though they sell for more than $1 million — one (9 bedrooms, 9 full baths) is on the market for $13 million. The company also runs the Lodge at Sea Island, a five-star golf resort on neighboring St. Simons Island.

As a matter of fact, Sea Island is a tiny sliver of land, an appendage really of the Manhattan-sized St. Simons, which probably accounts for the designation “at.” Though the island has all the public facilities, there’s not much buildable land left. Never mind that the new on-site golf course is unlikely to be economically viable as long as exclusivity is more important than revenue.

Some of Sea Island’s residents trace the company’s problems to 2001, when Jones launched an ambitious $500 million plan to create a world-class resort — a Pebble Beach of the East — from what had been a regional destination. Sea Island hosted the G-8 Summit in 2004, an event that bolstered the resort’s reputation for secluded elegance.

Family commitments prompted me to leave the Golden Isles in 2003. One of the few benefits of that decision, in my mind, was that I would not have to endure the G-8 Summit, which had already been announced. Since the news media were apparently directed to identify Sea Island as lying close to Savannah, some 75 miles away, the influx of disruptive outsiders was not as bad as it might have been, but the locals likely perceived neither elegance nor seclusion, what with helicopters whirling overhead and the small island airport being invaded by private jets. Those who could, absented themselves for the duration.

The company began developing an upscale golf and horse community on a 3,000-acre site on the north end of St. Simons Island, known as Frederica. Prime lots were to go for $2 million.

Actually, the north end of St. Simons is where the Hampton Plantation was situated – the property, along with Butler Island on the mainland, just south of Darien, to which Pierce Butler (Mease) brought Frances (”Fanny”) Kemble and which she wrote about in her Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839. Frederica is the name of the Fort, located about half way up St. Simons Island and built by James Oglethorpe to protect British interests from incursions by Spain. The apparent penchant for identifying geographic locations as being other than where they are seems passing strange. Perhaps that’s how exclusivity is supposed to be maintained.

Said Katie Mountcastle, a Connecticut resident whose family has owned a Sea Island home for 40 years: “They priced themselves out of the market. They must have thought this was Dubai or something.”

And, more evidence of mental dislocation?

In 2008, just two years after Sea Island celebrated the Cloister reopening with a party that one guest described as something out of “The Great Gatsby,” the company was in deep trouble. And the downward spiral was gaining speed. …

In April, Synovus announced the company had defaulted on its loans. By July, the bank announced a restructured loan package of about $400 million. Three months later Sea Island placed large tracts of undeveloped land — including thousands of acres in neighboring Camden County — on the market in an attempt to pay down debt. A month after that, Wells Fargo took over the deed to the Frederica development to settle a loan estimated at $140 million.

Sea Island defaulted on the restructured Synovus loan in January, and last month Goldman Sachs was brought in to try to clean up the remaining mess. What happens next is anyone’s guess.

Sending for Goldman Sachs to “clean up the … mess,” is somehow not reassuring. But, the question about the future is part of the standard reporting script. Predictions seem to provide a neat closing that can’t be argued with. They also serve to disguise what’s already happened. State Rep. Jerry Keen — quoted as opining that “Glynn County without the Sea Island Co. is like Atlanta without the state Capitol. It’s hard to imagine them not being there” — seems equally out of touch.

Rep. Keen, who worked for Synovus until two years ago and knows Jones personally, said Sea Island’s plight could affect everything from the county’s unemployment rate and tax base to property values on neighboring islands.

The speculative frenzy to which the Sea Island Company contributed, where homes that cost two hundred thousand to build and were sold for a million, has already resulted in the property taxes on bungalows built for shipyard workers during World War II being tripled. And for what? There’s been no increase in services and our ability to access the ocean and at least look at what our money has built has been reduced in the interest of some people’s “elegant seclusion” – people who, like the original plantation owners, aren’t even here most of the year.

What we have here is another good example of people not learning from the past. Thinking they can do better, they conveniently overlook that the better of bad is worse. At least that rumored causeway to the north end didn’t get built. Though, the federal government’s failure to fund that scheme is likely blamed in some minds for yet another land speculator’s bankruptcy. And to think, the interchange on the interstate was already in place!

On the other hand, it may just be that the ancestral spirits of Hampton Plantation are having a bit of revenge. When I took my artist friend, Alyne Harris, to see the sights of St. Simons, she caressed the tabby ruins and reported that the spirits of the slaves were speaking to her, welcoming her visit. Maybe Alyne, who’s always painting angels, was on to something.

Note: For more on this story, read a follow-up on Hannah’s Blog: http://hannah.smith-family.com/?p=3767 This article originally appeared on that Web site.

Georgia Tech, which had a substantial role in developing the Stealth bomber, is now applying aerodynamics to windmill blades. Working with PAX Streamline, a California company, Tech researchers are using a technology originally developed to increase lift in aircraft wings to help reduce the cost of manufacturing and operating wind turbines used for generating electricity.  The Georgia Tech Research Institute reports that the “circulation control” aerodynamic technology could allow the wind turbines to produce significantly more power than current devices at the same wind speed.

While Tech is working on the windmill blades, Clemson University in South Carolina is working on the drivetrain.   Its new a $98 million wind turbine test lab in North Charleston will focus on ways to make more durable and efficient drivetrains to make wind power more competitive with other forms of power generation.  U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu in December visited Clemson’s International Center for Automotive Research, which will operate the lab.

In Virginia, Apex Wind Energy Corp., based in Charlottesville, and Seawind Renewable Energy Corp., based near Richmond, submitted unsolicited proposals in August and September to federal regulators to lease space 12 to 25 miles off Virginia Beach for wind farms, according to the Virginian-Pilot.

There are political problems, of course.  When Virginia’s new Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell joined governors from Maine, Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland and Massachusetts in a meeting with U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on wind energy, he instead focused on his interest in offshore drilling for oil.  McDonnell also recently signed legislation to begin offshore oil exploration.

On the solar front, Georgia Tech researchers recently received broad patent protection in China and Australia for a three-dimensional solar cell design that uses “micron-scale towers” to capture nearly three times as much light as flat solar cells.  Tech’s Research Institute reports that modeling suggests that the 3-D cell could boost power production by as much as 300 percent compared to conventional solar cells.

The Institute for Southern Studies reports that a groundbreaking study out of North Carolina suggests that backup generation requirements would be modest for a system based largely on solar and wind power, combined with efficiency, hydroelectric power, and other renewable sources like landfill gas. “Even though the wind does not blow nor the sun shine all the time, careful management, readily available storage and other renewable sources can produce nearly all the electricity North Carolinians consume,” said author John Blackburn, professor emeritus of economics and former chancellor at Duke University.

In Gordon County, Georgia, officials are working with Sentinx LLC, a renewable energy company based in Johns Creek, Georgia., to turn a 36-acre abandoned landfill into a large-scale, 5-megawatt solar farm.  Under TVA’s Green Power Switch Generation Partners program, the agency would pay 12 cents per kilowatt hour for the solar energy.   The county expects to save $8,000 to $10,000 off its $518,000 annual electricity bill, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Shaw Industries in Dalton, Georgia, now uses a combination of wood and carpet manufacturing scraps to power boilers for steam, and company officials say that is saving more than $1 million a year in natural gas costs. Mohawk Industries’  is turning  a quarter of the nation’s 215 million pounds of recycled plastic bottles into polyethylene terephthalate carpet fiber at its recycling plant in Summerville, Georgia.

Tennessee recently received federal grant money to develop 2,500 charging stations for electric cars in Chattanooga, Knoxville and Nashville by late 2010.  The experiment comes in conjunction with Nissan’s plan to launch sales of at least 1,000 Leaf electric cars in Tennessee.

Catherine L. Ross

Georgia Tech researchers also are studying ways to generate electrical energy from heat discarded by chemical plants, automobiles and solar cell farms, and NASA has awarded $2.4 million to Tech to develop a new type of radar system that will be used to study the Earth’s ice and snow formations from the air. The system could provide new information about the effects of global climate change.

Catherine L. Ross,  director of the Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development at Georgia Tech, is an adviser to the newly created White House Office of Urban Affairs and recently participated in the Clean Energy Forum at the White House.

Growing up in an Irish Catholic family meant that we ate fish on Friday. Every Friday. Without fail. The only exception we ever saw was when my older brother had rheumatic fever and the doctors wanted him to eat beef every day to strengthen his heart. Heh. I know. But it was the best medical wisdom at that time. My grandfather had the same advice after his heart attack, and he lived to be 87.

Actually, as Catholics, we weren’t obliged to eat fish. We just couldn’t eat meat. Except my brother. At our house, though, “no meat” meant fish. So we ate fish every Friday. We didn’t live especially close to the sea (Atlanta), and the selection of fresh fish at that time wasn’t great. We were also a large family (Irish Catholic, remember?). All of this meant that we ate a lot of the dreaded Tuna Noodle Casserole. With potato chips on top. No peas. We also ate a lot of salmon patties made from canned salmon. I still like these. I haven’t made them in a long time, though. Hmmm….

Because we didn’t live near the sea, the fish we ate was most often canned. Tuna and salmon. Sometimes frozen, from the kitchen of our friend Mrs. Paul. She always made her specialty for us, fingerfish, a species that must be extinct now. At least I hope so.

In the summer, it was different, because we could go to the beach (St. Simons Island). At the beach we ate fish. Crabs. Shrimp. Lobster. All of it. We loved it. Somehow, though, we didn’t eat fresh fish at home. In later years, my parents used to bring home frozen shrimp and crabs. But they waited till I had left home to do that. I’m not bitter, though.

All this meant that I didn’t have a big taste for fresh fish. Shrimp, yes, but not fish. I didn’t know anything about them either. I liked to order trout in restaurants because I loved eating the flesh on one side and then unzipping the backbone to get at the other side. I still like to do that.

It was only when we moved to Belgium that I began to seriously cook and love fresh fish. Here, we are close enough to the sea to have fresh fish readily available. Everyone has their favorite fish market. For some, it’s in nearby Soumagne. For others, it’s in Herve. Or even the supermarket. My friend Françoise swears by the fish monger who’s in the town of Ensival for its weekly market. Me, I shop around.

I’ve developed a taste for fish. We still associate it with Fridays, but we eat it other days of the week as well. I find myself in the strange position of knowing the names of my favorite fish in French but not necessarily in English. Some of them have names that are not so pretty in English — rouget, for example, is mullet in English. Makes me think of a bad hair style…

Where was I? Oh, yes. We try to buy fish that’s sustainable and relatively local. This usually means tilapia or plaice or pollack or cod from Iceland. My favorite fish is the trout caught by one of our friends. He doesn’t really like to eat it, so he and his wife freeze it and sometimes they give it to us. YUM!

This dish is one that I first made one night when we were going out of town and we had some leeks and tomatoes in the fridge. And some fish. You can use any firm-fleshed white fish for this. It’s very very easy, and the flavors are delicate and healthy and clean — tomatoes, leeks and of course the fish. I serve it to company. On Fridays, of course!

Friday Fish

4-5 large leeks

10-12 small tomatoes (golf ball size)

400 g / 1 pound white fish

2 Tablespoons + 2 Tablespoons olive oil

• Preheat the oven to 160 C / 350 F.
• Cut the root ends off the leeks, and the hard green part. Cut them in half lengthwise, and wash them thoroughly under running water to remove all the sand and dirt between the layers. I just hold them near the base in one hand and with the other separate the layers and wash between them.
• Slice the leeks into pieces about 2 cm / 1 inch long.
• Heat 2 T olive oil in a large pan and add the leeks. Cook over medium-low heat till the leeks have released their liquid and are soft. This should take about 10 minutes.
• Put the leeks in a baking dish.
• Cut the fish into pieces about half the size of the palm of your hand. They should be roughly the same size so that they cook at the same rate. If there are some that are thinner than others, double them up. Nestle the fish pieces down into the leeks.
• Cut the tomatoes in quarters. Put the tomato pieces down into the leeks between the fish pieces.
• Drizzle 2 T of olive oil over the fish.
• Bake till the fish is opaque and flakes easily–about 20 minutes.

Serves 4 if they like it and 10 if they don’t.

NOTES:

• I often serve this with new potatoes, steamed and then crisped in a non-stick pan in a little olive oil. The crunch goes well with this dish.
• Good crusty rolls go well too. I think you need some crunch.
• Sometimes I just steam the potatoes and add them to the dish with the fish. Then I need crunch from rolls or something else.
• You can use flavored oil to drizzle over the fish — sometimes I use lemon flavored oil. Pepper oil wouldn’t really work here — it would kill these delicate flavors.

Just don’t. It ain’t right.

First of all, Willie Mays was a god and gods are … well dammit, they’re gods!  They shouldn’t have to be Googled. We should just know that they “are” gods and why they have that status — like Zeus or Thor or Ali or Jordan or Tiger. Or Willie Mays. (And to be perfectly honest, it says more about you than it does about them if you have to go around “Googling” gods. If it were left to me, the ‘‘laws of lineage’’ would include a requirement for elders to have an early, heart to heart with each of us in order to pass on the various legends of the gods. Seems like gods should deserve as much.)

In the second place, if you did happen to pull up “Willie Mays” on “the computer,” all you’d get is a sterile line of print that might bear some resemblance to the following:

You might also discover that ‘’the subject’’ was born Willie Howard Mays, Jr. on May 6, 1931 in Westfield, Alabama. Mainly, though, there’d be get a few numbers and statistics and figures.

The problem with numbers and statistics is that they have no heart, no soul … no flavor. The numbers on Mays would not tell you that he was perhaps the very first five tool player to ever play. (The five baseball tools are generally considered to be hitting, hitting for power, running, catching and throwing.) The statistics on Willie wouldn’t relate that he was the 17^th African-American to play in the big leagues in a post-War America that was still wrapping its collective mind around the fact that African-Americans, even ones who played mythically, magically, full-tilt, and like no one had ever played before were also deserving of full acceptance by society. And that even those of us who couldn’t play like Mays were deserving of the same.

The numbers would not tell you that the deepest part of centerfield in the Polo Grounds, where Mays made the greatest catch and throw in baseball history (against the Cleveland Indians in the first game of the 1954 World Series) measured a mind-blowing 483 feet from home plate. (The feat so demoralized the opposing team that it is said that the Indians team threw essentially threw in the towel for the rest of the series.)

Statistics are also misleading. By their very nature, they invite comparison. Comparing Mays to anybody but a handful of players — Aaron, DiMaggio, Gehrig, Mantle, Ruth and Williams — provokes the subconscious mind to entertain the idea that another, mere mortal player could, at least on paper, play the game in the same manner as Mays. In reality, there is no such luck. No mortal ever played the game like Willie Mays. Ask anyone who ever saw him play more than a few games.

Please forgive me if a 1950s schoolboy worshipful gush about Willie May is evident in these lines. I’ve just finished reading  Willie Mays, The Life, The Legend by James S. Hirsch (Scribner, 2010.) The gush comes partly I guess, because the book briefly brings back memories of my youth and endless innings of summertime, sandlot pick-up games. But mainly the 628-page book (mine was not a review copy) reminds me that Willie Mays was “that good.” From a literary perspective, so is the book..

One of the responsibilities of any writer or storyteller is to choose proper context. It is not an easy task. Most often, authors can come up short. Mr. Hirsch, not a sportswriter by trade (Thank the Lord!) does not. In fact, he prevails. Hirsch, unlike many other writers on sports figures, “gets it.” He triumphs even. He knows, apparently “from the jump” that Willie Mays was about much more than just baseball played between the baselines and on the base paths. The Willie Mays Story carries with it a backdrop of the terrible racial climate of post World War II, Bull Connor-run Birmingham; playing for the Black Barons at 17 years old; having to earn respect not just from fans but from other African-American ballplayers including Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, and Don Newcombe. The book also chronicles well  the off-field adjustments that an unsophisticated and sometimes naive young man was required to make in moving from the Jim Crow South to the sometimes Jim Crow North. (Can you believe it? Willie Mays, because of racial reasons, had initial difficulties buying a home in an all-white neighborhood in suburban New Jersey. Willie Effing Mays! My Gawd!)

I was reminded early-on in Hirsch’s tome of what a truly gifted player Mays really was. By the end of the book I had been enlightened as to much of what Mays went through just to live in New York ( and later San Francisco) and what a good person he was — and apparently still is. I also reminded myself that as “godly” as his play and leadership were he never made the insane money that players of today make. (A Horace Stoneham could never have afforded him today. Willie would have had to play for, say, Bill Gates!) I came away thinking that if the universe were at all fair, Mays would have been born perhaps a generation later so that he could have played in an era in which Al Gore had already invented the Internet, those people in Bristol, Conn., had started ESPN, and there was such a thing as a 24/7 news cycle. He also would have played in era in which the country had made much more progress in race relations than it had in the pre-Civil Rights 1950s.

Good non-fiction books are often the result of the melding of a really talented writer with a great story. Until both their deaths earlier in the decade, I’d always dreamed that one day, John Unitas (my favorite athlete as a youth) would someday do an authorized biography with David Halberstam. (My God, what a writer Halberstam was!) As a child — and maybe even as an adult — I just knew that the Baltimore Colts quarterback sat on the Left Hand of God. Their deaths earlier in the decade thwarted, of course, any hope of my dream literary collaboration. I think, though, that the Hirsch-Mays match-up suffices as a very close second.

While I am a near rabid fan of sports — golf, baseball, football (in that order), I am generally not a big fan of sports books. I read them from time to time. But still, I am not a huge fan of the genre. This is mainly because of the narrow “contextual thing” discussed above. Methinks, however, that Willie Mays, The Life, The Legend, (as corny as it may sound or “read” should certainly be included in the list of 100 essential or required “reads.” If you can at all get your hands on a copy, do so.  Preferably, buy it. If you just have to, steal it. Like Mays himself, the book is that good.

Just don’t go around Googling “Willie Mays.” It ain’t right.

© Copyright 2010 Will Cantrell

The story of Constance McMillen has been reported in a number of media outlets including CBS news and tells of the flap caused by McMillen’s intention of attending her senior prom. McMillen simply desired to escort her girlfriend to the prom and dress up for the occasion, just as other teens have done to celebrate the tradition.

According to CBS news, a Feb. 5 memo to students laid out the criteria for bringing a date to the prom, and one requirement was that the person must be of the opposite sex. Enter the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU told board members the restriction violated the students’ rights and not allowing McMillen to wear a tux violated her expression rights. Rather than fight the challenge put forth, the school board had the district cancel the senior prom citing “distractions to the educational process caused by recent events.”

Just what part of the educational process are they concerned about? Is it the notion that people wear tuxedos to formal events? Perhaps it is the part of the educational process that confuses civil rights with the idea that these are exercised only when convenient or only for people who think and act like “us.”

Clearly the student body is getting quite an education and one that couldn’t be more distracting from a call for tolerance and understanding in a community that suffered greatly from such omissions mere decades ago during the racially charged civil rights era when it was sheets and hoods, not tuxedos that were cause for concern.

The school board’s decision means that the values and moral judgment of a few will impact the entire senior class, robbing them of their only chance for what would ordinarily be a celebratory and joyful event.

McMillen has stood tall during the entire ordeal and gained inspiration from the knowledge that her actions will help people “later on.” She said upon return to class this week, she was singled out by classmates for “ruining the senior year” for many.

No Ms. McMillen, your classmates can thank the school board for that.

A Wicked Messenger? No, Kevin Mattson is a fine political reporter. His recent book, “What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?” is an observant and thorough account of the strange days of July ‘79. America was reeling from inflation, oil shortages, and a sense, as Mattson phrased it, that the American century was dead. President Jimmy Carter was trying to maintain his political viability, all the while imploring Americans to renew the country’s spirit.

Mattson understands the lack of confidence Americans felt. He understands the challenges Jimmy Carter faced. As he’s shown in his other excellent books, Mattson has a solid grasp of American history.

He may have misunderstood Bob Dylan, however.

In his book, Mattson reviews the cultural landscape of the staggered nation. Having an impact 15 years after “The Times They Are A-Changin’” was Bob Dylan. Word had gotten around the country, particularly its rock scene, of Dylan’s conversion to Christianity. A new album, “Slow Train Coming,” fueled by and filled with the message of his new faith was ready. Its release date was August 20.

Mattson reports on the type of Christianity taught at The Vineyard Fellowship, the evangelical church in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles where Dylan’s faith was nurtured. There was an emphasis on The Book of Revelation, and the interpretations Hal Lindsey (The Late Great Planet Earth) gleaned from the cryptic last pages of The Bible.

Dylan had a new album that, according to Mattson, nailed the coffin shut on the ’60’s. Over-simplifying, he writes that “Rock star lust gave way to born-again devotion.” He continued by reporting “Jimmy Carter’s favorite rock musician now refused to sing the songs the president most enjoyed (they were written before Dylan found Jesus) and sang only about Hal Lindsey’s end-times.” Obviously, the new Dylan songs focused on the choices of the Lord or Satan, and there being no neutral ground, but what he created on “Slow Train Coming” was not limited to Lindsey’s fiery warnings. Dylan also highlighted gentler aspects of the faith, as in the song, “I Believe In You,” which can easily be presented in a secular style.

Mattson describes Dylan as a “hippie rock star” who “had pushed rock and roll from celebrating love and drugs to providing apocalyptic Christian warnings about decadence.”

True, Dylan was focused on things spiritual and the judgment he believed ahead. But “hippie rock star?” Not really. In his memoir, Chronicles, Volume One, Dylan recalls the late ’60’s: the hippies’ golden era. Amidst the chaos and changes of that time, his main concern was his family’s safety. Dylan also tells of he and his wife attending a Frank Sinatra, Jr. performance at Rockefeller Center. After the show, young Frank stops by the Dylans’ table to chat. As reported by Dylan, it was a fascinating conversation, not the usual “”hippie rock star” patter.

Mixed Up Confusion. Through no fault of Mattson’s, things get more confused. Reports circulated in Summer 2009, shortly after “What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?” was published, that Jimmy Carter, the Sunday School teaching President, did not care for Dylan’s “born-again” material. Mattson didn’t write that. He reported Dylan had converted to Christianity and was recording songs about Jesus. He also wrote of what Dylan fans discovered at his concerts: he only sang his new Christian songs. No “Mr. Tambourine Man.” No “Like A Rolling Stone.” No “Maggie’s Farm” or any of the classic Dylan songs Carter and millions of others had long favored.

The New York Post, citing Mattson’s book, reported on July 16, 2009 that Dylan’s conversion had “jolted” Carter. The story’s headline on its Page Six feature declared “Why Prez Gave Up On Dylan.”

The next day, in its Idol Chatter column, beliefnet.com wrote that the former president “Has revealed..that he became disenchanted with Bob Dylan after the singer was converted to Christianity.” The columnist opines that Carter’s “distaste for Christian Dylan speaks more to his social justice views than his religious allegiances,” indicating Carter would have found more Christian relevance in Dylan’s anti-war and civil rights songs than in his reinterpretations of Bible passages. The column was headlined, “Bob Dylan: Too Christian for Jimmy Carter?”

Kevin Mattson’s book did not include a Carter critique on Dylan’s Christian songs, nor a Carter take on Dylan’s views of the scriptures. Mattson simply reported on Dylan’s conversion and the changes it brought  (for a time) to his career. While he did disappoint with the “hippie rock star” label and only offered a short-hand description of Dylan’s new work, his book did not provide a word on what President Carter thought about the changes Bob Dylan had experienced.

Lo and Behold! On July 24, 2009, writing for bullypulpit.com, Scott Marshall revealed Carter was impressed with “Slow Train Coming” and wanted Dylan to perform at The White House (that finally happened but it took more than 30 years). Marshall refers to a book written by former White House reporter Wesley G. Pippert entitled An Ethic of News: A Reporter’s Search for the Truth. In the book Pippert recalls a lunch with Carter at The White House on November 4, 1979. After lunch “Carter suggested we go into the den across the grand hallway and he played Bob Dylan’s new album, ‘Slow Train Coming.’ Carter remarked during the meal that Dylan had become a Christian.” Pippert describes Carter nuzzling his grandchildren, Jason and James Earl IV, as he softly sang along with “Man Gave Names to All the Animals,” a lighter track from the album.

The same day, Iranian militants seized the US embassy in Tehran, holding Americans hostage for 444 days. Exactly one year from that day, Carter lost his reelection bid to Ronald Reagan. By that time, Bob Dylan’s second Christian album, “Saved,” had been out for nearly five months. The third of the Christian albums, “Shot of Love,” would hit the stores the next summer. Since then Dylan has released 11 new studio albums, most of them with songs that keep listeners pondering the current state of his faith.

Again, Americans are feeling less faith in their country. The last couple of years have been brutal. Yet there are always young people who wish to jump in the political fray. Jason Carter, sung  to by his grandfather the president, is now running for a seat in the Georgia State Senate. He’s seeking the votes in a district not far from the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library or Emory University, where Bob Dylan performed in 1964. One could say times change and some things remain the same.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, as the case may be, small government, fiscal conservatives, govern our state.  State Senator Chip Pearson (R- Woodstock) is telling us that lean times call for a lean budget. Personally, I thought that is what conservatives stood for even in fat times. However, I suspect that our fiscal conservatives are not seeing this fiscal crisis as the excellent opportunity it presents for them.  They have the opportunity to implement their small government philosophy and give the citizens of Georgia a significant tax cut – permanently. I am not going to hold my breath but I have always wanted to know how small, small government would be. I have always wanted to know whether tax cuts would actually lead to increased state revenue. I have always wanted to know if conservatives actually believed their ideas about how small government would work if implemented, and now we have – no, make that they have, the opportunity to place their principles in practice. They have the opportunity to downsize government and let us see firsthand their true priorities.

Conservatives have never needed to face the reality of decreased tax revenue until now. Now is the time that the proverbial tire hits the road because they have to make the hard decisions of how limited government should be and how much revenue a limited and small government will require. How are they going to respond to this situation, particularly since they have been asking for just such a situation for decades? Interestingly, I hear no talk of permanently downsizing government, one of their stated goals. Conservatives are talking as if this is an aberration and as soon as the economy recovers, we can put the fat back in the budget.

According to Republican fiscal doctrine, a tax cut now would put more money into everyone’s pocket, people will go out and spend it, corporations will have an incentive for investments, and the increased growth would produce more jobs and tax revenue than before the tax cut.  This, then, is the perfect time for a tax cut in the State of Georgia. This is the perfect climate to test Republican economic policies.

I am not sure we would like their priorities. Georgia Republicans are cutting significant monies from education, but that is not new. Since Governor Sonny Perdue took office, the Republicans have cut billions of dollars from education. For some reason, Republicans do not appear to value education. Maybe that is why Georgia ranks among the lowest states in terms of literacy, high school dropout rates, and test scores. In fact, we have the lowest high school graduation rates in the country. It is estimated that almost 25%, 1 in 4, of Georgia’s citizens are illiterate. These figures are from 2000 to 2003, suggesting an already dismal base rate at the very time Republicans started slashing the educational budget. What do they have against an educated citizenry?

The cuts in education are not the result of low taxes. Georgia has the 16^th highest taxes in the nation and among the worst school systems. If you look at the Business Tax Climate, of the states surrounding Georgia, only North Carolina has a worst tax climate. Georgia ranks 29^th in the nation, not good for a Republican state with pro-business rhetoric. Maybe now we know why so many new automobile manufacturing plants went to neighboring states.

How are Georgia’s citizens going to respond when they get a taste of small government?  How will Georgia’s citizens adjust to the decrease in services, the shortened hours of public offices, and the compromise in public safety?  How will they feel when they see the results of small government and limited government services?  Consider the fact that Georgia State Troopers are likely to lose 10% of their yearly pay because of imposed furloughs over the next 12 months. Their furloughs come on top of last year’s budget cut for Public Safety.  Georgia has as few as eight Troopers covering 12 to 15 counties while 20 of the 48 patrol posts are closed anywhere from 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. and do not reopen until 7 a.m.

Now is the time for Georgia’s Republican legislators to step up to the plate and demonstrate, in detail, exactly what small and limited government looks like. Now is the time for Georgia citizens to learn whether tax cuts in an economic downturn will actually generate more state and county revenue. This financial crisis has been tailor-made for the Republicans to demonstrate their political beliefs in action. I hope they step up to the plate because I, for one, would like to see what the Republicans have had in mind all these years.

At 77, former University of Georgia football Coach Vince Dooley, whose teams won the National Championship in 1980 and six Southeastern Conference titles, is as busy as ever.

The sports legend talked this week in Atlanta about some of his activities.

• The coach’s passion for gardening grew when he audited UGA classes a dozen years ago. In early April, Looking Glass Books of Atlanta will publish Vince Dooley’s Garden: A Horticultural Journey of a Football Coach.  The volume will include text by Dooley, photos and paintings by Steve Penley, who collaborated with Dooley previously on a football book.

• Dooley and his wife, Barbara, just returned from a Persian Gulf cruise off Dubai. The occasion? The couple mark their 50th wedding anniversary March 19.

• Irish eyes will be smiling on the Mobile, Ala., native this Saturday (March 13). He’s the grand marshal of the Atlanta St. Patrick’s Day parade.

• The Dooleys’ Athens home continues to undergo a major renovation. The main part of the home had to be demolished because of asbestos and mold. Dooley says the couple hopes to move back in from the pool house in late June. He joked that his only concession from Barbara was that he could keep his spectacular garden.

Dooley also will accompany the Georgia Battlefields Association and famed historian Ed Bearss this weekend on a tour of the fall 1864 Civil War campaign in northwest Georgia.

Few Bulldog fans know that Dooley, who served in the U.S. Marines Corps, earned a 1963 master’s degree in history while he was coaching at Auburn University. A year later, he became UGA’s head football coach.

For years, Dooley took a grandson to Civil War sites around the country, including Antietam, Vicksburg and Gettysburg.

“To walk in footsteps of history is so important,” the Civil War buff said.

Phil Gast edits the blog The Civil War Picket.

Mattel's New "Mad Men" Barbies

Don: “When Matthew Weiner created me, I believe he meant for me to have, well, a weiner. Guess they missed that in the negotiations with Mattel.”

Roger: “Yeah, I could use one of those myself.” (Don hands Roger his drink; Roger lifts his glass to Don).

Don: “And that’s even before he knew that my real name is Dick.” (Don tries to furrow his brows. Nothing happens.)

Roger: “At least they gave us arms – the better to drink with, as somebody says.” (Roger unscrews his left leg from his thigh, takes the scotch in his right hand and pours it through the plastic hole in his thigh). “Hit me again, Draper. It may not be wooden, but a plastic leg could come in handy.”

Before Don can get Roger another drink, there’s a knock at his office door.

Don: “Come in.” Don attempts to pull the cuffs on his sleeves down, but finds that  have been sewn into his jacket. He looks toward the door. The door opens and Joan Harris is poised in the doorway.

Roger: “Jesus, Joan. Did you get a breast reduction, for God’s sake? You’re gonna give me another heart attack.”

Don: “I don’t know if ladies like Joan want to talk about that.” Don looks to the floor and puts his hands in his pockets. His pinkies stick out over the top of the pocket. He tries shoving them in, but again, his pinkies catch on the pocket opening.

Joan: “It was Greg. He’s still trying to work on his surgical skills. It’s okay; the man has no brains in his fingers.”

Roger: “Humph. So he’s decided to be a plastic surgeon? Could be money in that some day.” Roger stands and attempts to straighten his tie. “I already have a leg up, which is even better than a foot in the door.”

Joan: “I knew you wouldn’t like it,  but I married him for his heart, not his hands.”

Roger walks to the door and turns to look at them before leaving. He eyes Joan’s hips from the back.

Roger: “Looks like he took a whack at your butt, too.” Roger closes the door behind him.

Joan looks to Don and tries to roll her eyes. They don’t move.

Don: “Sit down, Joan.” Joan moves to the sofa. She tries to cross her legs at the knees, then tries again with the other leg.

Joan: “Nothing is the same, Don. You, Sterling, me.”

Don: “And, Betts. Trapped in a party dress. What will the kids think when she shows up at school like that?” Don walks to the side chair and lowers himself in to it. He reaches for his cigarettes and offers one to Joan.

Joan: “Can’t. Had to give them up. Haven’t you heard?”

Don: “Burning plastic. I can live with the smell, but can’t live without the smokes.” Don attempts to light his cigarette. His thumb won’t slide down the igniter; he throws it across the room and  puts his hand to his forehead. He sighs.

Joan: “It’s not about the plastic. It’s Mattel. An image thing. Surely you can understand.”

Don: “Yeah. I heard about the martinis. It’s why I’m drinking scotch this morning.”

Joan: “I just can’t believe they let my arms bend like this and it’s of no use since I can’t smoke.”

Don: “You can still put your hand on your hip, or, (Don clears his throat) what’s left of them.”

Joan: “At least this look has always worked for Betty. What does she think?”

Don: “Have you forgotten about the divorce?”

Joan: “Right. Reno. Plenty of plastic there. So you’re not even talking to each other?”

Don: “I’ll get a chance to tell her what I think. What she did to Sally and how it’s affected us all.”

Joan: “Don, I don’t know what you mean … what she did to Sally?”

Don: “She gave our poor little girl a Barbie. (Don attempts to shake his head, displaying empathy – to no avail. He reaches for his neck and guides his face from side to side.) “Sally had nightmares. Screamed bloody murder every time she looked at the damn doll. This was only a year ago, and look at us now. Betts should have known better.”

Joan: “I’m sure it was innocent. Betty probably just wanted Sally to slim down a little bit. You know, be more like Barbie. More like herself.”

Don has a flashback to the scene where the interior decorator that Betty brought in to re-do the living room is telling him “the hearth is the soul of the home.” Don lifts his glass and drains it, then smiles.

Don: “I hope Betts moves that antique chaise lounge right in front of the hearth with a roaring fire. It will look great with a plastic puddle of my ex-wife.”

Mattel, Inc., Lionsgate and AMC have  introduced the Mad Men Barbie, for a mere $74.95 per doll, or $300 for the set. Poor Peggy is just too real to be included.

A lesser man might try to convince you that the whole thing had been a mistake, that he thought he was going to the tractor pull, or maybe to Wrestlemania. But I’ll be honest. I meant to go. Attending the ballet was actually on my bucket list, that list of things I intend to do before I die. I couldn’t believe it either, but there it was at number thirty-seven.

The fact that this particular activity was on the bucket list in the first place was where the actual mistake came in. I have another list—the Just Shoot Me Now, ‘Cause I Ain’t Goin’ list—and going to the ballet was supposed to appear on that one, but there was a filing error. You just can’t get good office help these days.

By the time I figured out the blunder, the folks at the Fox Theater had already locked and bolted the doors, and armed guards were posted to keep anyone from escaping. So since I was stuck there for the next three hours, I bought an eight-dollar bottle of beer and tried to make the best of it.

This particular ballet was named Coppelia, which ironically means just shoot me now, ‘cause I ain’t goin’ in French. It was written in France in 1870 by a couple of French guys, and I guess that’s all we need to say about that.

The story line goes something like this. For no particular reason, a crazy toymaker invents a doll that looks like a real girl, and everyone dances happily around the stage. The guy who played the part of the crazy toymaker must have been a senior man with the ballet company, because he was the only male member of the cast who got to wear pants. It’s probably in the union contract: time-and-a-half after forty hours, thirty minutes for lunch, health insurance, and pants.

Anyway, to continue our synopsis, one of the local village boys falls in love with the doll, which leads everyone to dance happily around the stage. This infidelity sort of ticks off the village boy’s real girlfriend, and you can’t blame her for that. I mean, her fiancée has taken up with a windup doll, for goodness sake. That’s kind of scurrilous behavior, even for a French boy in tights. To demonstrate her ire, she and everyone else dances happily around the stage for a while.

Following that is a comedic episode wherein the crazy old toymaker loses his keys while winking twenty-seven times at the audience. This loss eventually leads to the discovery that the doll is just a doll, after all, which prompts everyone to dance happily around the stage for an extra long while.

And finally, the village boy dumps the doll in favor of his jilted girlfriend. She takes him back, and everyone dances happily around the stage. The end.

I don’t claim to be a French historian, and I’m certainly not an expert on the psyche of the human female, but I feel safe in making the observation that here in Georgia, very few women would take back a man who had left them for a doll.

The ballet was performed by the Moscow Festival Ballet. I have been told by people who know about these things that this troupe is an excellent ballet company, and from all of the leaping and cavorting that went on (and on, and on), I am sure that this is true. To tell you the truth, though, I had already figured out they were from Russia, or at least from somewhere nippy, because all of the male ballerinas had apparently tucked an extra pair of tightly-rolled socks into their drawers in case they encountered some cold weather.

Russian ballet has a long and distinguished history. Names such as Anna Pavlova and Marina Semenova are well-known. Indeed, almost everyone recognizes Mikhail Baryshnikov, a famous dancer who fled to the West in 1974. Everyone believed at the time that he was defecting from the Soviet Union, but new facts have emerged that prove conclusively that he was just out looking for someplace to buy trousers. Unfortunately, it was dark, he got lost, and the troupe inadvertently left town without him. But just try explaining that to the KGB.

A male ballerina, by the way, is called a ballerino, which makes sense, I guess, even though the name sort of sounds like something you might come down with a case of if you don’t boil your drinking water on a camping trip.

Camper 1: Are you okay? You look a little pale.

Camper 2: I think I might have a light touch of ballerino.

Camper 1: I told you to boil your water, but would you listen?

If you ever make it all the way to the end of a ballet, the first thing you notice is that they take bows. Lots and lots of them. And these are not just the regular little bows like your mama taught you to do back in the old days when she wanted you to be polite. These are the bows that come with arm sweeps and dramatic hand gestures, like the bows they have down at the circus. First the main ballerina bows and flourishes. Then the main ballerino follows suit. Then they bow together while flourishing each other. Then they bow separately again. Then they join ranks with all of the other dancers, and they all bow and flourish awhile. Then just the boys bow. Then the girls. Then the tall ones. Then the short ones. Then the ushers. Then the guys who sweep up after the show.

With all of that hoopla going on, you’d think they had won the Super Bowl or something. It made me want to pour a cooler full of Gatorade over the whole bowing bunch of them.

Altshuller’s incisive breakthrough was to notice that all technical systems had certain things in common that both allowed them to work and, in other circumstances, prohibited them from doing so. He developed a formula for analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of technical systems and then put forth principles by which improvements to a given technical system could be identified and developed. He then derived forty “keys” to technical innovation. These were based, in part, upon an analysis of the improvements made to existing technical systems filed in the patent office. An example of one such key involves replacing a mechanical system with an electronic system or some other device, such as an optical system.

Altshuller developed a manual for how to invent an improvement to just about any technical system known to man. It is called TRIZ, which is an abbreviation for the Russian words for Theory of Inventive Problem Solving. Many major corporations now use the expanded principles of TRIZ to construct “patent fences” around the proprietary technology important to their production. A patent fence is built by making as many incremental improvements to your own, as well as others, intellectual property. These incremental improvements fence off challenges other corporations and individuals might make to commercially viable technical improvements. When you read about the current patent wars raging among the elite of the information technology world, Apple, Google, Microsoft, HP and others, much of it relates to these fences.

Technically and commercially, this is really important stuff. A corporation’s capacity to competitively produce core products could hinge upon whether it owns or has affordable access to the technical rights required. Further, the same applies to your competition. While anti-trust laws prohibit undue gouging by a competitor that owns some valuable technical intellectual property, it is always better, as they say in west Texas, to be at the top of the irrigation ditch with a shovel than at the bottom of the ditch with a lawyer.

I believe that Altshuller’s work has been responsible for much of the innovation, worldwide, that is keeping our society in constant change. Without TRIZ emerging on the scene when it did, it is likely the innovations required by the international space programs would have been much delayed. Likewise, the innovations in information technology that was given birth by the efforts at space exploration may have been a very long time in coming without TRIZ and other systems of technical innovation like it.

TRIZ makes public declarations, such as President Kennedy’s that we would put a man on the moon and bring him back by the end of the decade of the 1960s, a high probability. TRIZ also makes the concept of energy independence and greater dependence upon clean, renewable energy entirely feasible. However, such major breakthroughs are only possible when government, major corporations or both make such a goal a priority. Only when the massive amounts of applied research funding are made available for such a well defined technical goal can economy changing, culture changing technical advances be made.

Invention and innovation are no longer always accidental. Now they can be purposeful if we want them to be.

A new study just out for 2009 says that despite the record unemployment, layoffs, furloughs, downsizing, off-shoring, Wall Street crash, real estate crash, and worst depression since Prozac was allowed to advertise on TV, it seems that millionaires in the US grew by 16% to 7.8 million and those whose worth is over $5 million was up 17%. The study goes on to project that the concentration of wealth, should it continue as it did during the Bush years, will have us looking like Mexico in 2048*. Now I know what you are thinking: that will solve the illegal immigration problem. See? I’m not a fatalist.

More statistics out: the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the number of unemployed workers age 55 and older jumped 70% in 2008 and AARP reports it has jumped 331% during the Bush years (from 2000-2009, the numbers rose from 490,000 to 2,114,000). Those in this demo know full well that their experience, work ethic and talents aren’t worth the cost of pension plans and health care anymore and that Walmart is always an option. Age discrimination be damned, seniors still have it better than convicted felons and those wishing to have an experience with an airline terrorist. See? I’m not a fatalist.

More statistics also from the Bureau of Labor Statistics… Men, it seems, have it worse when it comes to unemployment during this “worst recession since the really great one” at least percentage wise, than women. White men, it seems, have it worse, at least percentage wise, than black or hispanic men.** See? There’s no plot. The Bushies surely wouldn’t have done this on purpose. See? I’m no fatalist, this is a great step forward in narrowing the disparity of racial and gender unemployment rates.

Now I could go on with reports on foreclosures, credit card defaults, business closings, tax collections, and those who lost their health insurance, but that would be the type of tactic a fatalist would employ. Not me. I’m truly optimistic that the markets will correct and all will be just wonderful if we can only kill this health care bill; quit supporting the unemployed; stop the government regulation of banks and Wall Street; reform those torts which allow people to sue when their lives have been destroyed by our innocent corporations who are just trying their tiny little hearts out to employ as many people (in the third world) as possible; and, for gawd’s sake, get that deficit under control while cutting taxes and increasing highway and military spending. Oh yeah, and protecting marriage. And, supporting Israel. And, getting rid of that awful socialist program Americorp. And, of course, make everyone start carrying guns. And, protect that super minority rule in the Senate. And, well, I’d better just stop there, ‘cause I’m sure the markets will take care of everything for everyone.

Sarcastic, you decide.

_________
* Closer to us than 1970.
**Black men still have higher unemployment rates than white men, just the percentage increase last year was lower, which, statistically, is probably because it was sooooo friggin’ high already.

Not long ago, for instance, we told you the wonderful news that the U.S. just might become the next France. We got the word from Mitt Romney and joie de vivre has been building ever since.

Once again, here goes: Some really great news.

Rush Limbaugh, who just might be our nation’s consummate rightwing blowhard, said this on Tuesday about the pending health care legislation:

“I don’t know. I’ll just tell you this, if this passes and it’s five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented, I am leaving the country. I’ll go to Costa Rica.”

Finally, another good reason for Congress to pass the reform measure.

Sorry, Costa Rica, we know this news might not seem quite so bright from where you bask in the sunshine. But let’s face it. According to some measures, you currently offer slightly better health care than the U.S. You have no army but have been highly stable. You are ranked among the top countries in the world for environmentalism. And you’ve even elected social democrats to high places.

Sounds like you’re just the kind of place Limbaugh would want to live.

And let’s face it: If you can’t straighten him out, who can?

PS: Britain’s Guardian newspaper has been running an online survey about whether Limbaugh should leave the U.S. if the healthcare bill passes. As of late Tuesday, 85.2 percent of the international community that had voted said, “Yes, another good reason to pass healthcare.” A no-doubt kinder 14.8 percent of respondents said, “No. What’s Costa Rica ever done to the U.S.?”

So inexcusable that the tourism association on Monday removed Walt Baker as CEO and severed ties with his marketing firm, Mercatus Communications.  Baker said it was just a little joke — a little joke that he sent to lobbyists, an aide to Nashville Mayor Karl Dean and the president of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau.  The little joke has cost Baker’s firm contracts with the Metro Arts Commission, the United Way of Metropolitan Nashville, and the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Baker has apologized, and several Nashville officials have apologized for him. “I hope that those who know me realize that the message was not intended to be malicious or hurtful in any way and can find it in their hearts to forgive me,” Baker said in an e-mail to Nashville’s Metro Council.  And he apologized on TV in an interview with WKRN now on YouTube.

NashvilleScene.com appeared to be the only Nashville media outlet to post the offending e-mail, which is an otherwise sort of funny yarn about a guy running into Tarzan at the store and reminiscing — until it gets to the final passage:  “I asked about Cheeta, he beamed and said she was doing good, had married a Lawyer and now lived in the White House!!! “  Then, there’s a photo of a chimp and Michelle Obama.

Some commenters to Nashville Business Journal defended Baker.  Said one:  “I don’t know who to ask or talk about this with, but wouldn’t you think the various pictures of George W. Bush compared to chimps and other primates be offensive as well?”  But we can’t recall any photos comparing Laura Bush to a chimp.

Bingoing on: Alabama Circuit Judge Robert Vance says Attorney General Troy King — not the governor — has authority over an anti-gambling task force that has been raiding electronic bingo casinos and has ordered King to advise him by March 22 on whether he supports the raids.  The Montgomery Advertiser noted that King said last month that he might take control of the governor’s task force if it continued to pursue the “ill-advised and reckless approach” of trying to raid electronic bingo casinos without search warrants.  But he hasn’t moved to do so.  Gov. Bob Riley said he will appeal Vance’s ruling.  At a Saturday rally in Montgomery, the Rev. Jesse Jackson urged the crowd to go back to their hometowns and “test the law just as they did at VictoryLand,” one of the casinos temporarily shut down by the task force.  State Sen. Paul Sanford, a Huntsville Republican, said he will introduce a new bill to put the matter to a statewide vote.  Another senator’s earlier bill failed to get enough votes to even be debated.

Dew Droplets: The Florida House Speaker has issued an edict banning cellphone picture-taking in the House chamber … State Sen. Mike Michot, chairman of the Louisiana Senate Finance Committee, says he wants public schools to start using Internet-based textbooks … Florence, South Carolina, has approved a daytime curfew for young people who should be in school … Florida’s python hunting season began this week … Candidates for mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, debated at a forum that was translated into French, Spanish and Swahili … Tennessee has changed the time for scheduled executions from 1 a.m. CST to 10 p.m. … New Orleans is considering an ordinance that would prohibit awarding city contracts to convicted felons.

Check out our News and Opinion Feeds for a lot more Southern happenings.

But David Brooks is far from the most doctrinaire, and his columns in The New York Times are almost always readable.

As a writer and in his regular appearances on PBS’s News Hour, Brooks comes across as a bright fellow who respects people with differing viewpoints and refrains from mean-spirited commentary. He also appears willing to challenge some of the orthodox faithful on his own side of the political spectrum. Unlike many modern-day conservatives, he rejects free-market fundamentalism and accepts the fact that government has a legitimate, even necessary, role to play. He just wants the appropriate amount of government involvement in our lives.

Liberals might think he often reaches the wrong conclusions, but at least he makes some interesting observations along the way.

I’m still puzzling, however, over the definition he offered of conservatism in a column last week, headlined “The Wal-Mart Hippies:”

“Conservatism,” Brooks wrote, “is built on the idea of original sin — on the assumption of human fallibility and uncertainty. To remedy our fallen condition, conservatives believe in civilization — in social structures, permanent institutions and just authorities, which embody the accumulated wisdom of the ages and structure individual longings.”

The concept of “original sin” might disconcert some people, but, rather than launching off on less than useful tangents, let’s accept Brooks’s definition of it as “the assumption of human fallibility and uncertainty.” Don’t most liberals accept the idea that human beings are fallible? And don’t most liberals also “believe in civilization?”

I don’t know about you, but if I believed people were perfect, I’d be an anarchist — not a liberal — because I would expect people to always do the right thing and to cooperate when necessary without any need of government intervention. I don’t believe people are perfect, and I know I’m neither perfect nor always right. I also think imperfect people create — and operate — imperfect institutions, both private and corporate ones as well as government ones. But while I can’t always have any influence on the private institutions, I do have at least a little say in how the government functions. And I want it to function in ways that foster the possibility of health and happiness for as many people as possible. In other words, I want it to help us all live in more civilized ways.

So I’m a liberal. But, by David Brooks’s definition, I think I’m a conservative, too. Of course, I’m also fallible, so I could be wrong.