Pollitt would not be the first person to showherself living an outwardly inconsistent life. Relationships have a habit of making idiots out of a great many people. Pollitt's previous writing has been all over the place. There was a period in the 90s where her ditziness made her almost as annoying as Cockburn. I was happy when the Nation forced both of them to cut their column space in half (and Pollitt, to her credit, didn't whine about it). If she's willing to play exhibitionist to a world full of voyeurs, i can't feel sorry for her. It's a sad commentary on what's become of feminism that a women who is seen as an important feminist writer has chosen write a silly confessional rather than do something to reinvigorate a movement that's been done in by both its infighting, and its lithmus testing as well as its inward looking middle class cluelessness.

because the story was really developed in 2000 by an Iowa farmer, with a little help from people on one of Salon's Table Talk threads. In many respects, this was the first participatory, web-based story and, of course, the media was too interested in Gore's use of earth tones. It's telling that "Guardgate" would have been a far more useful exploration of character than the fluff about Bush being "someone to have a beer with" (a bizarre assertion for an ex-drinker). I've wondered about Rather's choice of timing. It's beginning to seem that he sees the environment finally being right to fully expose the story. Sadly, it was more important in 2000 and 2004. If is useful, it might finally make "chickenhawk-hood" something that finally gets the attention it deserved in 2003.

As a one time Chicagoan, that was may favorite refrain about "the city too busy to hate (but full of racism anyway)".

I also left Atlanta fairly recently, but I have to disagree with the last poster--people have been returning to Atlanta and the "intown" suburban areas like Decatur for quite a while and the condo market is too depressed for anything downtown to be all that expensive. Greater Atlanta has an oversupply of golf courses and just about every bad development idea imaginable. The forest canopy is disappearing, public greenspace is extremely lacking in comparison to many other major metros, and most of the new suburban developments are treeless wonders.

There have been efforts at water conservation in past droughts, although they have been poorly publicized and enforced--limits on lawn watering and the like. Beyond that, there have been none of the initiatives that would be familiar to people from Southern California or other places which have had to confront these problems. Yes, the rest of the sunbelt keeps growing recklessly, but every now and then, people notice. Unfortunately, virtually all of the jurisdictions in the Atlanta area are ruled by people heavily indebted to developer interests and with in absence of large employers with real roots in the community (for every Coca-Cola or Delta, both in trouble, you have a skeletal HQ like UPS or several branch offices of big companies with no real investment in the community), developers constitute a disproportionate amount of local business sector political influence. There's a lack of real grassroots organizing of any kind outside of a few pockets in Atlanta and some of the near suburbs. "Growth" continues to have a constituency and efforts to control it are small or only intermittent. There have been occasional glimmers of hope--even in Cobb County (Gingrich-land), people have organized against Wal-Mart and fast growing Cherokee County briefly had a county commission not in developers' pockets. But I wouldn't hold my breath. Perdue is a standard issue GOP gasbag and many of the Dems are major disappointments.

I left Atlanta almost 2 years ago. In so many ways, it struck me as an unlivable place--more car bound than quintessentailly car bound LA, congested and polluted (although it has little industry), poorly planned with a horribly engineered road system, and filled with ugly architecture. It also lacks any 1st rate cultural institutions and has never really contributed important products or ideas to the world (Coca-Cola, to the extent it's important was invented by pharmacist in another state). Atlanta began as a rail hub and now it's an airport hub. Beyond planes changing at Hartsfield-Jackson, there isn't much reason for any of the sprawl to be there. Just about anything done in Atlanta could be done in another city with a hub airport whether it be Charlotte, Detroit, or San Francisco. the city is on no river, it has no significant natural resources nearby, and the local agricultural economy is pretty anemic beyond peanuts and pulp wood. The drought should stimulate debate about development and where it should occur. Just because we can air condition a place like Phoenix (or Atlanta) doesn't mean it really needs to prosper and the cheap cost of land in such places (not as cheap as it used to be) should be balanced by the long and short-costs of scarce basic resources.

I can't imagine why anyone would want to live in Atlanta (and I'm originally from that most unglamorous or places, Cleveland, which has plenty of water and a decent art museum). The long term problem of managing resources should reframe the question to why should anyone live in such an unsustainable place and why should public policy do anything to encourage it.