About Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 7, 2011)
FRIDAY. SEPT. 9 SOUTHERN SOUL COME OCT YOU SOME! Ba/i in yMrnsI >«✓ NEVER A COVER Ta MONDAY POOL TOURNAMENT OPEN TABLES 6 8 M/ BICKET $4 COORS PITCHERS TLESDA1 NEW EVENT COMING SOON! Ml DNI SDAL H SAT t RIVAL KARAOKE MlDNCSDAY DART SEASON '1.50 PBRS & '2.75 IMPORTS *12 DOMESIIC BlCHETS rniRSDAL BEER SPECIALS & BEER PONG COME SEE ElIZABETH JONES! S.AII RDAY. SI P 11 MHI R IO DAISY DLKES & COM BOY BOOTS SEXY COMOIRL COSIEST! TASTE OF INDIA I-IXI2 INDIAN CUISINE Bunsen Bmffct MON-FRI 11 :30am*2:30pm $7.95 SAT & SUN 12PM-3PM $8.95 Of Dinner Mon-Sun 5pm-10pm Open 7 Days • 131B East Broad St. 706*559-0000 • www.indiaathens.com Welcome to the Flagpole Family! Congratulations to Dave & Krista on the birth of their baby girl THaVi September 1, 2011 8 lbs. 12 oz. Strand Hair Studio GUYS! Call me when you want a GREAT haircut 5 Points michael Mon-Sat 706.549.8074 Leaving Athens? Get a subscription to Flagpole! Call 706.549.9523 ATHENS NEWS AND VIEWS Baby Oope: Dave Marr and his wife Krista Dean had 8-pound, 12-ounce Sally Grey Marr early Thursday morning, Sept. 1, whom Dave describes as "healthy and beautiful like her mom." We at Flagpole are thrilled. See this lovely new writer/artist to your left on this page. Remembering 9/11: Bob and Nancy Hart vis ited New York City just after Sept. 11, 2001 and came home determined to create the 9/11 Memorial Trail, in memory of those who were killed in the attacks. They did, and you can visit the trail at 320 Morton Farm Lane, where there will be a memorial ceremony on Sunday, Sept. 11 at 6:30 p.m. Bob has spent 10 years working on this trail, which winds through the woods on their property; it's east of Athens, off Lexington and Morton roads. You can get a preview of the trail at bobhartart.com. It's the only 9/11 memorial in Athens. A Message for the Citizenry: The Middle Oconee and North Oconee rivers have been low all summer, and they're showing extreme drought conditions now. Both rivers are very, very low. This week, the Middle Oconee is setting low- flow records for this date, based on almost 80 years of stream gauge records. (To clarify: it's not setting all-time low-flow records, but it was the lowest it has ever been on Aug. 31 of any year since record-keeping started, 77 years ago. And this is very, very low.) Now that Athens is drawing on its back-up supply at the Bear Creek Reservoir rather than the rivers, the lake's level is dropping, too. Athens knows how to conserve water—we showed that in 2007 and 2008—and it is absolutely time to do it again. Short of pray ing for the perfect hurricane that makes a soft landing on the coast and then brings us soaking rains, we've got to get serious about water conservation. The ACC Public Utilities Department has all the information online about rules and regula tions as well as the best practices—just look for Water Conservation on their section of the ACC website. A lot of the information online is from last year's Georgia Water Stewardship Act. It's state law that you can't water between 10 a.m and 4 p.m., no matter the day of the week or your street address (with some exceptions for thingsTike new sod, but many of those situations can be avoided by smart planning). Hopefully, our culture shift will reach a point where no one—not even a few unin formed property managers—is planting new shrubs and sod in August, and that's just outdoor watering. What we need to do, right now, is be diligent about all of our water use, indoors and anywhere else. It is also well worth wondering if state environmental officials shouldn't be just about ready to begin issuing a brand-new statewide drought declaration. Navy showers, everybody! Friends don't let friends plant sod in summer—especially in a drought. [Ben Emanuel] Running for It: The 10th Congressional District got carved up worse than Athens-Clarke County in the recent bloodletting at the Capitol known as reapportionment. Looks like there's no love lost among the Republicans in the Legislature for our congressman, Paul Broun, Junior. No wonder, since Broun trounced a prominent state senator in his first campaign and a prominent state representa tive in his second. To show there are no hard feelings, the legislators cut a couple hundred thousand voters out of Broun's stronghold up in far northeast Georgia and replaced them with a bunch of people south of Atlanta. Most of Broun's former supporters ended up in a new congressional district centered around Gainesville, and there was some speculation that Broun would simply run in the new dis trict, which also now includes part of Athens- Clarke. He ended that by announcing last week that he's sticking with the 10th District. So, we win some; we lose some. The northeast portion of Athens-Clarke escapes from Broun. The rest of us are still his subjects. At least Krazy Korner won't have to move. In re: redistricting: if you really want to understand what is going on with the various redistrictings, especially in Oconee County, you need to keep up with Oconee County Observations, the political blog run by jour nalism prof Lee Becker at oconeecountyob- servations.blogspot.com. Lee is a voice of reason, and he looks at the facts and analyzes them. As you will see when you go to his blog, he gets out the redistricting maps and compares them to the census tracts and the voting precincts and historical voting trends— a very refreshing just-the-facts approach in this day of shouting "commentators," which sometimes even Substitute Dope is guilty of being. We've been so focused on Athens-Clarke that we've practically overlooked what was done to Oconee County in order to create a safe district for the new Republican rep for merly known as "Democrat Doug." The Political Bug: Dan Matthews made a credible though losing effort in his run for the old state representative seat in Oconee County and a small portion of Athens-Clarke. Now, Dan has qualified to run for Mayor of Watkinsville. Since the majority of his strength in the legislative race came from Athens-Clarke, Dan must know something the Substitute Dope doesn't. Pete McCommons editor@flagpole.ccm On Sunday. Sept. 11, at 6:30 p.m. there will be a ceremony at the 9/11 Memorial Trail in memory of those who were killed that day 10 years ago. 4 FLAGPOLE.COM • SEPTEMBER 7, 2011
