Jimmy Carter recently offers an apology to the Jewish community and all of a sudden the race for David Adelman’s District 42 Georgia Senate seat is news on The Atlantic’s website…

Jimmy Carter wants the Jewish community to know that he understands Israel’s travails, and that this new understanding is not connected in any way to his grandson’s quest to represent a partially-Jewish district in Atlanta in the Georgia state legislature.

In a recent interview with JTA, the elder Carter said…

“Jason has a district, the number of Jewish voters in it is only 2 percent,” he said, chuckling.

District 42 Candidate Jason Carter responded to his grandfather’s apology with the following statement to JTA…

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Remember that goofy fellow who showed up in Decatur a few weeks ago and requested a key to the city in exchange for a little community service?  No?  Well the Decatur Minute documented the whole thing.

That was comedian Steve Hoffman and now he’s now found himself on the CBS Evening News, speaking about the 95 keys and counting that he’s collected from city’s all over the country.

And while Decatur escapes exposure in the televised segment that seems conflicted between laughing along with Hoffman and feigning upset at the devaluation of the honor of key-bestowing, Mayor Floyd’s photo with Hoffman is front and center in the accompanying website article.  A similar photo below is from The Minute.

So, as only a national newscast can over-generalize, should a key to the city still mean something (in every single city across the country)?

Umm…well that sorta depends.  Did your city only reserve keys for burning-building heroes and eight term mayors up until Hoffman came a knockin’?  Or are keys kinda blase’ in your city these days?

In short, instead of asking “Should a key mean something?” perhaps the more appropriate question would be “DOES a key mean something?”

I mean, it’s not like Decatur gave him a Hometown Hero award.

Thanks in large part to a renewed energy brought to the office of Veteran’s Affairs by Secretary Eric Shinseki, ill and homeless veterans have more reasons today to hold out hope for a revived and resourceful department than any time in recent memory.

Among Shinseki’s most ambitious goals is the announcement to get all 131,000 homeless vets off the street in just six years.  If nothing else this tangible benchmark signals accepting recognition of the problem – which was strangely lacking in previous administrations – and shows that Shinseki takes the crisis seriously enough to be held publicly accountable for it.

And though things finally seem to be moving in the appropriate direction, the “sprawling” department must still make many great strides in reorganizing and rebranding before any verdict can be made on Shinseki’s tenure as Secretary.  Therefore, I’m reposting my call from Veterans Day 2008, hopeful that our country may finally be on its way to providing the needed care and support our nation’s veterans have long deserved.

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As “Rez” points out, Shepard Smith is appalled by the mere existence of these donut bacon cheeseburgers and gives credit to “a Decatur, Georgia bartender” for discovering them.  That would be ol’ Mulligans in Oakhurst if you’re wondering.

Of course, they probably just pulled the info off Snopes.

Decatur: Conflicted Home of the “Oakhurst Community Garden” and the “Luther Burger”.

Southern Voice did a little digging and found that Georgia residents and businesses gave $71,579 to California during the Prop. 8 battle, with over 80% going to opposition of the measure that banned gay marriage.

Among the four groups/individuals that gave $1,000 or more to the opposition was Decatur’s Vision Properties, along with a local Decatur resident.  If you want to see the resident’s name click over to SV.

Every year Veterans Day rolls around and media outlets around the county flood the news space with stories about homeless and ill vets.  With 154,000 veterans living on the streets and only 15,000 transitional housing beds provided by the federal government, news outlets have their pick of stories each year.

Though we often debate the size and competency of government and how much it should “influence” or “interfere” (depending on your position) in our daily lives, I can find few substantive arguments that claim it isn’t our government’s full responsibility to look after the men and women it sends to war upon their return.

But even though the issue seems so cut-and-dry, it is still generally unaddressed.  Even in the midst of two wars, we did little to address the needs of those returning home alive.  It wasn’t until Walter Reed Medical Center was exposed as the nation’s shame two years ago that Congress fully funded the VA and passed the biggest increase in veterans health care in the last 70 years. But we’ve gotta keep going.  This is an issue of national morality that can’t only be bandaged up when things get really bad.

In today’s tough economy, its easy to see how those homeless and ill vets might continue to be overlooked to deal with issues more threatening to the nation’s security.  But this is an issue where we can no longer afford to cut corners.  We must take responsibility for our country’s actions and the undue burden it has placed on a select few, making sure we provide them with the care they deserve.

A day of rememberance should not be the cornerstone of our veteran care policy…a day when we say “we haven’t forgotten you!”.  It should instead be merely a complement to the constant attention and great care that’s already being provided, a day when we recognize and celebrate the service of those that have given so much.

While the big national story surrounding public financing has been Obama’s smart decision to forgo it, my native state of CT has done something that is also attracting a lot of attention: providing public financing for contestants in state House and Senate races.

The result seems palpable…

Under Connecticut’s new law, candidates for the House and Senate must first raise threshold levels — $5,000 for the House and $15,000 for the Senate in small contributions of $5 to $100, excluding firms doing business with the state. If they reach that, they then get an additional $85,000 for a Senate race and $25,000 for a House race. They can get more if their opponent decides not to accept public financing. Money comes from the sale of unclaimed and abandoned assets in the state’s possession.

For challengers, the appeal is obvious. Suddenly, they can have resources equal to an incumbent’s without hitting up major donors.

Incumbents have mostly gone along either because it looks bad not to or because, like challengers, they’d rather be campaigning than raising money.

For an automakers collective fleet…from 27.5 mpg today to 31.6 mpg by 2015. Click here for the full story.

If only he had been a lame-duck 4 years ago.

Happy Earth Day!

Planning and managing a city’s growth is nothing new. But what about when a city population drops dramatically, as it has in countless industrial centers across the country?

In Youngstown, Ohio they’re employing something called “Youngstown 2010“, which involves both tearing down houses and tearing up streets to fight crime and drugs that have moved into deserted areas. Check it out here.

It’s a seriously interesting topic. In a country that propagates myths of unending prosperity, we generally only focus on managing growth. But what about all of the industrial towns across the country, where plants close and jobs move elsewhere?  Shouldn’t they be just as concerned and adjust for the future?

But what about historic inventory?  There’s no chance for any revitalization if you tear down entire neighborhoods.  And isn’t it wasteful to just bulldoze an entire neighborhood?

It’s on the lips of Democratic presidential candidates and on the minds of many voters.  But beyond the usual disputes over universal healthcare (taxpayer cost, responsibility, innovation), the harsh reality of implementation is rearing its ugly head in the state of Massachusetts.

There just aren’t enough general physicians to take on the 600,000 uninsured.

Appointments are being scheduled a full year in advance.  Older physicians’ retirement have the potential to outnumber incoming, younger physicans.  And oh yeah, that aging population of boomers and will soon require even more healthcare.

From the NY Times…

Dr. Patricia A. Sereno, state president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, said an influx of the newly insured to her practice in Malden, just north of Boston, had stretched her daily caseload to as many as 22 to 25 patients, from 18 to 20 a year ago. To fit them in, Dr. Sereno limits the number of 45-minute physicals she schedules each day, thereby doubling the wait for an exam to three months.

“It’s a recipe for disaster,” Dr. Sereno said. “It’s great that people have access to health care, but now we’ve got to find a way to give them access to preventive services. The point of this legislation was not to get people episodic care.”

Whether there is a national shortage of primary care providers is a matter of considerable debate. Some researchers contend the United States has too many doctors, driving overutilization of the system.

If universal healthcare is the answer, how will we prepare to manage the general onslaught of deferred care on top of an already aging population?  I haven’t heard much from the candidates on this one.  It’s much easier to just use “universal healthcare” as a Democratic battle cry.

Boomers, you’re retirement scares the bejesus out of me. This Atlantic article from January about your impending (and potentially devastating) retirement didn’t do much to calm my young nerves either.

Brother, can you spare a young man a dime?