In the Loop
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ACC Is Making Crosswalks Safer All Over Athens
Photo Credit: Austin Steele
Workers install a pedestrian refuge island on Prince Avenue at Piedmont College Tuesday morning.
Athens-Clarke County workers are installing two pedestrian refuge islands on Prince Avenue this week, and similar improvements will be coming to other parts of the city within the next couple of months.
The Transportation and Public Works Department is installing the islands at mid-block crosswalks at Pope Street and Piedmont College. They give pedestrians a place to pause safely after crossing two lanes of traffic before crossing the other two.
"They're small, but they do provide some protection for the pedestrian," TPW Traffic Engineer Steve Decker said.
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Trump Advisor Roger Stone Thinks the Deep State Is Trying to Kill Him
Photo Credit: Screencap via Infowars
Carter Page—the seemingly hapless, dead-eyed and bald-headed former-Trump advisor who is at the white-hot center of the controversy surrounding Trump campaign-collusion with Russia—looks like he tried to learn to smile like Putin but can’t pull it off. Yet he continues to accept offers to botch television interviews.
Last week, he refused to say who brought him into the Trump campaign as a foreign policy advisor on skittery appearances with Jake Tapper and George Stephanopoulos.
Speculation about Page grows, reaching a fever pitch in former British MP and rom-com novelist Louise Mensch's explosive, and seemingly unfounded, claim that Page delivered a video of Trump making policy promises to the Russians in exchange for hacking the election.
In conversation, long-time Trump advisor and Republican dirty-trickster Roger Stone—who, like Page is expected to testify before the House intelligence committee, and, also like Page suspects that he was the subject of a FISA warrant—told me that he also thinks that former campaign head Corey Lewandowski is responsible for Page’s presence on a list of Trump advisors—but added that Page had previously worked for Ben Carson’s campaign.
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Environmental Nonprofit Brings Tiny House to Athens Tech Monday
You’ve seen the tiny house shows, you’ve thought about how cool it would be to pack up and live light, but if you’ve never actually gotten to experience a tiny home, the Creative Animal Foundation will be at Athens Technical College on Monday showing the possibilities of 200-square-foot living and the value of living sustainably.
Classroom talks will start at 9 a.m., and from noon–5 p.m. the tiny house will be open to the public for viewing. You’ll also get the chance to talk sustainability with tour hosts Stephanie Arne, co-founder and board president of CAF, and Tim Davison, co-founder and board vice-president.
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'Progressive Conservative' Antwon Stephens Announces Mayoral Candidacy
Stephens' Facebook profile features a photo of himself with Tiffany Trump.
Earlier today, I received a press release announcing a new candidate for mayor. Just one thing was missing: a name.
Apparently he announced on Tim Bryant's radio show this morning, but I didn't catch it. After some online speculation—Batman? "The Man With No Name," Clint Eastwood? Should we get the Hardy Boys on the case?—campaign manager April Carson was kind enough to fill me in. The candidate is Antwon Stephens.
If the name sounds familiar, it's because Stephens—then going by Keyantwon—was involved in a controversy as the 17-year-old head of the Athens Tea Party Patriots back in 2013.
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Photos: Robotics Competition at Stegeman Coliseum
Forty-three teams from high schools across the state gathered inside Stegeman Coliseum last weekend to take part in the Peachtree State Championship Qualifying FIRST Robotics Competition.
Teams were divided into two sides, red and blue. Each match consisted of three red and three blue teams—each with its own robot—competing to see which team could complete a series a tasks first.
A red team consisting of OTTO from Forsyth Central High School, RoboMustangs from Meadowcreek High School and RoboBibb from Bibb County high schools won the state championship.
Those teams, along with 12 others from Georgia, will participate in the national championship in Houston, which kicks off Apr. 19.
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Campus Carry Opponents Plan Online Action
Photo Credit: Poetry Action Network
As they did last year, the Poetry Action Network—a group of Athens writers led by Magdalena Zurawaski, Laura Solomon and Jenny Gropp—is taking to Twitter to oppose "campus carry" legislation passed by the Georgia legislature.
The Poetry Action Network is asking campus carry critics to download a sign here, print it out, take a picture of themselves holding the sign, and tweet the photo to @vetocampuscarry or @poetryaction, or email it to [email protected]. The photos will be tweeted at Gov. Nathan Deal all day in an effort to convince him to veto House Bill 280.
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Podcast: The Gorsuch Confirmation Catastrophe
On this week’s episode, Lawrence Weschler—a longtime New Yorker staff writer and the author of numerous books including the recent Waves Passing in the Night—talks with host Baynard Woods about the catastrophic implications of confirming Neil Gorsuch, the need for massive mobilization, and the nature of scientific inquiry. And composer Ruby Fulton puts one of Trump's tweets to music.
Democracy in Crisis is a weekly podcast hosted by Baynard Woods and Marc Steiner, produced and engineered by Mark Gunnery for The Center for Emerging Media. Theme music by Ruby Fulton and the Rhymes with Orchestra.
Co-host Marc Steiner is on a reporting trip in Alabama for the next two weeks.
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Allen West at UGA: U.S. Is Facing 'Civilization Jihad'
Former Florida congressman, tea party star and retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel Allen West was at the University of Georgia on Tuesday to talk about “the war on radical Islam,” embracing President Trump’s travel ban from certain Muslim nations while criticizing U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East dating back to the 1970s.
West began by reading 1786 letter written by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson about the Barbary Pirates off North Africa to describe a long, contentious relationship between America and Islam.
This was part of a highly-rehearsed presentation, noted one student who said he has seen West speak before. West was “painting a picture of ‘us versus them’” by tracing the history of an entire religion back to terrorist group, the student said, and criticized him for seeming to lump all Muslims into the “extremist category.”
West disagreed—it’s they who paint this picture, he said. “I’m not making any of this up. We’ve been dealing with this since 1786.”
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