Former Atlanta mayor Bill Campbell in an AJC file photo. Kent D. Johnson, kdjohnson@ajc.com
The Braves move from downtown to Cobb County has been called plenty of bold-faced names, but “blasphemous” is a new one, wielded by former Atlanta mayor Bill Campbell.
Over the weekend, 11Alive/WXIA billed the interview as the first sit down with the former mayor since he was convicted and sentenced on tax evasion charges a decade ago. Campbell was mayor when the 1996 Olympics came to Atlanta.
Afterwards, the Olympic track and field stadium was converted to a ballpark for the Braves. That was 20 years ago, and the lease is up this year. Said Campbell to Doug Richards:
“I think it’s blasphemous, quite honestly, the shocking amount of money that’s being paid by the people of Cobb County — many of whom somehow proclaim that they are fiscal conservatives — and yet they’re paying half a billion dollars for the Braves to move a few miles north, with the incredible traffic problems that will occur inevitably there. And without public transportation, it seems a waste.”
Keep in mind that Campbell’s assessment isn’t likely to have much impact on the other side of the Chattahoochee River. Watch here:
***
Yet another former mayor of Atlanta is on the verge of stepping into the spotlight. From a weekend piece by the New York Times, on Bernie Sanders’ attempt to gain control of the platform and resolution committees this summer’s Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia:
In a letter sent on Friday to party officials, lawyers for Mr. Sanders said that the appointments of Barney Frank, the former Massachusetts congressman, and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut violated party rules. Mr. Frank is to co-lead the rules committee, and Mr. Malloy the platform committee.
In the letter, Mr. Sanders’s lawyer Brad Deutsch said that both men have been “harsh, vocal critics of Senator Sanders, and equally active supporters of his challenger, Hillary Clinton.” Mr. Frank has called Mr. Sanders “outrageously McCarthyite” for his suggesting that Mrs. Clinton would be influenced by her speaking fees from Wall Street; Mr. Malloy has led efforts among Clinton allies to attack Mr. Sanders’s record on gun control.
“Their criticisms of Senator Sanders have gone beyond dispassionate ideological disagreement and have exposed a deeper professional, political and personal hostility toward the senator and his campaign,” Mr. Deutsch wrote. “The chairs therefore cannot be relied upon to perform their convention duties fairly and capably while laboring under such deeply held bias.”
DNC officials rebuffed Sanders’ demand. Unmentioned in the article is the fact that former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin will be Malloy’s co-chair on the platform committee. Hearings on its content are to start shortly, she tells us.
***
As the weekend broke, Politico.com tapped former House speaker Newt Gingrich for his opinion on potential vice presidential picks for presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. The topic was U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. Said Gingrich:
“Corker’s a great guy. He actually has something in common with Donald, because they’ve both been very successful businessmen in real estate,” Gingrich said, noting that he was the mayor of Chattanooga before becoming a senator and chairing the Foreign Relations Committee.
He added, “very stable guy, in some ways would balance Trump.”
Think about that. A “very stable guy” would balance the Republican ticket.
***
Former U.S. senator Max Cleland has entered the debate over traumatic brain injuries – as both a subject and advocate. In a recent op-ed piece for the New York Daily News, penned with Dr. Daniel Amen, a clinical neuroscientist and brain imaging expert, Cleland said he has undergone a pair of scans that, for the first time, displayed the physical damage done to his brain by the same grenade explosion that robbed him of three limbs. (An MRI had been off-limits because of the shrapnel still in his body.) The scan picked up traumatic brain injury in one region, and post-traumatic stress syndrome in another. Writes Cleland:
Seeing my own abnormal functional scan helped me reframe my problems as brain-based, medical, and not moral, which decreased the shame and stigma I had carried silently for decades.
In addition, the value of knowing that the structure of my brain was normal, but the function was abnormal, gave me hope that my brain could get better if I was diligent about rehabilitating it.
Even in the lay literature, the concept of neuroplasticity is becoming more widely known. This motivated me to take better care of my brain in the many ways that were recommended, including improving my nutrition, sleep, and weight.
***
You have to admit that Alabama politics is a fast-pitch past-time. The following Yellowhammer.com piece has set religious conservatives calling foul:
In what Chief Justice Roy Moore’s legal counsel called a “brazen move,” the Judicial Inquiry Commission (JIC) of Alabama has hired an attorney from the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to prosecute its charges against the Chief Justice.
Former SPLC Legal Director John Carroll will prosecute the case. The SPLC has been among the organizations at the forefront of the effort to remove Moore from the state’s high court. The group’s current president says Moore “has disgraced his office for far too long” and “should be kicked out of office for the good of the state.”
The SPLC was also heavily involved in pushing for Moore to be removed from the Court nine years ago when he defied a federal court order and refused to remove a statue of the Ten Commandments from the state judicial building.
