By Elliott Brack | New Orleans was our recent destination, one of our favorite cities in the USA, for after all, we had not been in several years. While you still see problems left from Katrina, the city seems to be enjoying a new vibrancy, moving forth as always, happily.
Boosted by continual tourism, which seems to have bounced back nicely, its prices for hotels, foods and trinkets remain high. Includes lots of Mardi Gras parade photos.
By Elliott Brack | The premise is simple: pigs raised on the ground instead of concrete pens are happier pigs and produce better and tastier meat. That’s the theory at Thompson Farms here in Dixie, Ga., where Andrew Thompson produces pork, selling almost all his production to Whole Foods stores throughout most of the South. There’s a local connection: he is the brother of Mike Thompson, an attorney in Technology Park/Atlanta at Peachtree Corners.
By Elliott Brack | Some readers have wondered if we were serious about one of GwinnettForum’s Continuing Objectives, to require that the Georgia General Assembly meet only once in every two years.
In short, you betcha! Why? Because most Georgians will tell you that nothing is safe when the Georgia Legislature meets, as members introduce all sorts of measures that negatively impacts its citizens, most bills only benefiting some local constituent.
By Elliott Brack | With the opening of the Gwinnett Braves baseball season at Coolray Field on April 9, there will be a different view from home plate. Looking toward the outfield, fans will see a new apartment complex just past the outfield wall, which is anticipated to be ready-for-occupancy by opening day. Some 40 percent of the units will have an unobstructed view of the field.
By Elliott Brack | Gwinnett County Commission Chairman Charlotte Nash was something of an evangelist when she gave her fifth annual “state of the county” address to the Gwinnett Chamber recently. In effect, she offered an “altar call” for the people of Gwinnett County to step up and join with her and the county commission to make sure the county reaches its potential.
By Elliott Brack | Call the building “The Helmet,” for that’s what it looks like, a three-story football helmet, painted orange. It’s located on Marietta Street across from the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and adjacent to the Georgia World Congress Center.
Its official name is the College Football Hall of Fame, and Atlanta landed a gem of a tourist attraction with this facility.
By Elliott Brack | This year’s Academy Awards winners and the reception of moviegoers of nominated movies gives pause to think. It sent me to one of Gwinnett’s premier events, the bi-annual awarding of the $50,000 Hudgens Art Prize for Georgia artists.The Hudgens Awards program has recently announced the finalists in its third competition. The winner will be announced on June 13.
If George Sparks shepherded Georgia State University in its middle years, the major figure propelling the university into the future was no doubt Noah Langdale. He was president from 1957 until 1988, seeing it grow from two buildings with $1.9 million budget and 5,200 students, and offering one degree, to 22,000 students and 20 buildings, a budget of $118 million and with 50 degrees in more than 200 fields. Today GSU could soon have more than 50,000 students, as Georgia Perimeter College is to merge with GSU.
“Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.”
– The 40th president of the United Sates, Ronald Reagan (1911-2004).
Gwinnett Forum publisher Elliott Brack suggests that Gwinnett County needs a long-range list of continuing objectives for improving the county. His list:
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