Super Winners

I can't tell you how pleased I've been to watch the flailing demise of the two former powerhouses down South. Florida State and Miami—and their marvelously ineffective offenses—are set to bleed all over each other this weekend in one fabulously gory display of competitive hara-kiri. I have no motives other than a touch of congenital sadism and schadenfreude for the former ruling class. I feel compelled also by a scientific curiosity, like Francis Bacon eviscerating animals and watching the palpitating mechanism of their insides before they die. I too am watching the creature, especially Florida State and the new overlord of its offensive decline, Jimbo Fisher. The following has been excerpted from his Monday press conference. Warchant.com has the whole story.

• On quarterback Xavier Lee's progress: “I am not in any way displeased that Xavier's not going to be a really good player for us or is a good player for us. We just have to keep working on the little things, with me trying to put him in better situations early to gain him some confidence or get an easy thing or two. It's like the old adage: Once you get hit and someone knocks the slobber out of you and you hit a few balls, maybe you calm down. And maybe we can try to help him with that a little bit.” Not only is that the most cumbersome old adage I've ever heard, it's the weakest as well. “Maybe you calm down”—I don't think maxim and proverbs can be built on uncertainty. This, along with that obfuscatory sequence of negatives in the first sentence, is evidence of a man grasping for answers.

• On the struggles of the running game and tailback Antone Smith: “I think what's lacking in there, it goes back to the old adage of 'Are we confident'? No, but does confidence come first or does success come first. You have to keep pecking away and we have to be consistent in what we do.” I don't think “old adage” means what you think it means. Translation: I don't know.

• On the complication of his offense versus predecessor Jeff Bowden's: “They used to be that they called a play and ran a play and from what I understand. What we are doing right now we are I guess more complex than that but we are not brain surgery here. There are certain teams in high school and in today's ball because the way people play you have to, you cannot just call a play one way and say I am going to run it. You have to have either a quick pass out of it or maybe a run to the other side because of number's game and the way people blitz and attack you today. That is today's football. Even though we may not do it perfect all the time we are making a lot of progress in that ways. Now like you say there are situations and things I don't think they have ever had to do here as much. What we are doing right now, I analyze that every day, about what I am doing, am I asking too much.” Checks? Audibles? Today's football? Jeff Bowden kept score with his fingers.

Ask a Banker

There's been a lot of talk around the house about New World Orders, the Rothschilds, the Jesuits, the Catholic Church in general, the Illuminati, the Priory of Zion, the pharmaceutical industry, your mom, and the Bush-Clinton bi-family hold on the leadership of the country. I stick my head in the sand during such conversations, but clearly there's a lot of anxiety floating about. If you feel powerless, like the world is being controlled by an unknown cadre of “deciders,” it just might be. The suspects, notwithstanding, are not cloaked conspirators enacting arcane rites among the cryptograms of Scottish kirks. They're actors in the top echelon of modern financial markets. Like the ones on Monday who “created an $80 billion fund intended to prevent a critical corner of the lending market from harming the broader economy.”

The plan, which comes after three weeks of meetings organized by the Treasury Department, is intended to prevent the subprime mortgage mess from freezing credit markets more broadly, which would make it difficult for corporations to fund operations and growth. The discussions began as regulators and banks were increasingly concerned about a fire sale of assets held in so-called structured investment vehicles, which are funds organized by banks that hold a wide range of hard-to-value securities known broadly as "asset-backed commercial paper."

The fund, named the "master liquidity enhancement conduit," will be operational in about 90 days, once the financial institutions hammer out the details. The fund plans to buy at market value only high-quality, low-risk securities that have been affected by the credit crunch as a fearful market painted a variety of assets with the same brush, according to sources who were familiar with the plans. It will not buy securities related to subprime mortgages.

"Once established, [the fund] will agree, for a set period of time, to purchase qualifying highly-rated assets from certain existing [structured investment vehicles] that choose, in their sole discretion, to take advantage of this new source of liquidity," said a statement issued by the banks creating the fund, led by Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America.

Wuh? Maybe I'm just being anti-capitalism crazy. Let's—ding, ding, ding—ask a banker! Please welcome Banker Josh to the stage. (Applause.)

Donnie: Welcome, Josh, thanks for coming.

Josh the Banker: Thanks for having me. I hope I can add some filler (albeit interesting) content to your blog.

Donnie: One man's filler, another's feature. What is this "asset-backed commercial paper" thing they talk about?

Josh the Banker: All these banks are creating a giant "structured investment vehicle" (SIV), which invest in longer-term assets like mortgages and fund these investments by selling short-term debt called "asset-backed commercial paper." This short-term debt is backed by your mortgage which is backed by your house (get it?). The SIV makes their money from the spread between your mortgage and their debt.

Donnie: Can you give us some examples of "high-quality, low-risk securities" that have been affected by the credit crunch"?

Josh the Banker: The rating organizations, i.e. Moody's, Standard & Poor's, have gotten a lot of flack for rating some sub-prime debt AAA when in actuality by definition a sub-prime loan shouldn't be even near an AAA rating. Picture if you had 100 mortgages each at $100,000 pooled together into a $10,000,000 security. Each mortgage has a house of at least $150,000 in value with a borrower with a 700+ (Good) credit score. This would be a "high-quality, low-risk security" A lot of babies have probably been thrown out with their bathwater.

Donnie: Please define "structured investment vehicles". Does a '68 Chevelle count?

Josh the Banker: The SIV is an off-balance sheet asset created by a "big New York City" bank and sets up with independent investors (usually risk adverse investors such as Money Market Mutual Funds). The big banks make their money from fees they charge SIVs, and are responsible to buy a portion of the asset-back commercial paper if no one else wants it. They also face reputation risk if their SIVs were to fail.

Donnie: Are there lots and lots of clandestine funds and amorphous securities that no one knows about? Is the world controlled by a disembodied brain in the dark recesses of the J.P. Morgan building? Be honest.

Josh the Banker: There is always at least one buyer or one seller, whether that is J.P. Morgan selling from is right hand to his left hand, who knows.

Donnie: Has finance capitalism become so complicated and abstract in the modern era that economic collapse like in the 1930's is virtually impossible? This is barring some extremely negative condition of a resource, like gas at $20 a gallon or the South totally running out of water. The question could be rephrased: To have an assault rifle or not to have an assault rifle?

Josh the Banker: Instead of collapse, it's more likely individual bubbles will blow up and pop with a big one coming every three to seven years. Some of these may lead to recession some just slight growth. The next one is China: it's flying too high too fast. Think late 90's tech stocks. You may be enjoying the ride know but be ready for a quick drop at some time.

Donnie: Is Joel Osteen a prophet?

Josh the Banker: More like the greatest salesman in the nation. But remember kids, caveat emptor.

Donnie: After the subprime lending fiasco and now the water problems, what is your outlook on the real estate market over the next year and down the road?

Josh the Banker: I assume we're talking Northeast Georgia. While both are problems, they both appear fixable over the long-term (with a lot of work). As long as there is economic growth in state, people will come for jobs. As long as people come for jobs they will need places to live, eat, work, and shop. The subprime problem is getting sorted out, but even if some one gets foreclosed on a house they can't afford, they can still rent a one-bedroom apartment. If we can't find a sustainable long term solution to our water problems the state won't maintain or exceed it's current pace of economic growth.

Donnie: Thank you, we hope to see you back soon.

Let's all give Banker Josh a big hand for participating. (Standing ovation.)

Together Forever

Houston Nutt's a goner, I'm more and more convinced by the day. The unrest among the Arkansas fan base is inconceivable, such that if Nutt should leave out of the instinctual pursuit of happiness. When crazies are sifting through your cell phone records and making accusations about your personal life, the perks of your head coaching job are nil. The Razorbacks need to start over; and the new athletic director, signalizing the conclusion of Frank Broyles's feudal reign over the state, will be happy to bring in his guy. Houston Nutt, however, says he still doesn't see an end in sight—well, at least not until the next decade:

“The contract they’ve given me, it’s real clear. It says 2012,” Nutt continued. “It doesn’t say you’re gone 2007, 2008. It says 2012.... I don’t worry about ooh, there’s a plane in the sky, or there’s a shirt or there’s somebody saying something. I can’t do that. I’m going to get lost with these guys, get lost in this team room here in about 30 minutes, have a good practice today and get ready for the next one.” With his long-term security assured at least on paper, Nutt is concerning himself more with the short term. Arkansas has plenty of issues to deal with in the here and now, including the continued fourth-quarter collapses and ongoing problems with the passing game that have led to losses.

Before I start portending who the next guy might be—and he's probably going to have to be young and ambitious enough to deal with a Razorback lunacy that has tried to mew the basketball program—I think it's right to make a small testament to Houston Nutt's decency as a coach. Candidly, he's won everywhere he's been and brought significant success to a team less talented than its opponents. Let's also not kid ourselves by thinking he's not a dimwitted egoist of a coach, a used-car huckster afflicted with moronic echolalia. He is that too; but there is no doubt that transplanted to the Big 12 or ACC, Nutt would fare well. For the sake of historical symmetry, send him to Clemson, where former Razorback Ken Hatfield went several decades ago. Then equip him with two distinct advantages Arkansas never had: a wealthier recruiting base in the Southeast, with established pipelines into Florida, and a reduced level of competition. The Razorbacks might then pine for the better-than-average good old days.

The relevant question in the interim is, how much does Nutt make per year? How much would his buyout be? Nolan Richardson, I think, is finally off the payroll.

Impending Doom

The New York Times recognizes its the end of the world as we know it—and I could really use a little sparkling water. Further proof that Atlanta in its current state is an abomination, a product of spectacular hubris, begging for divine judgment. When the money's good, the land doesn't matter. Now we've overbuilt, overdeveloped and it can't hold us, but the money's not bad and we'll buy whatever we don't have. What's the asking price for water from the Tennessee River? What if we rerouted the whole North Georgia watershed into the capital city? The coast can just desalinize their water. Come on, there's sitting right next to a friggin' ocean.

I'd be lying if there wasn't some dark interior part of me rooting for the Ancient of Days in this fight. But I doubt the mania of capitalism will meet some fundamental humility. Faulkner said that “Ode on a Grecian Urn” was worth any number of old ladies. I suppose that an Appalachian creek is worth any number of malls, fast-food restaurants, Wal-Marts, gas stations, office buildings, cheap plastic houses, etc.

For the better part of 18 months, cloudless blue skies and high temperatures have shriveled crops and bronzed lawns from North Carolina to Alabama, quietly creating what David E. Stooksbury, the state climatologist of Georgia, has dubbed “the Rodney Dangerfield of natural disasters,” a reference to that comedian’s repeated lament that he got “no respect.”

“People pay attention to hurricanes,” Mr. Stooksbury said. “They pay attention to tornadoes and earthquakes. But a drought will sneak up on you.”

The situation has gotten so bad that by all of Mr. Stooksbury’s measures — the percentage of moisture in the soil, the flow rate of rivers, inches of rain — this drought has broken every record in Georgia’s history.

Color me scared.

Sundries: Georgia, College Football, and Otherwise

Scanning the NETWORK has provided some choice culls today:

• Macon Dawg reviews his expectations of the Vandy contest at Dawgsports.com: “Rollouts/misdirections. Now this I was expecting. Vanderbilt continued our opponents' efforts to take advantage of our young linebackers' inability to even look like they know what the hell they're doing, much less that they're capable of actually doing it. This is going to happen for the rest of the year. Florida and Auburn have entire sections of their respective playbooks which are labelled "misdirection plays Willie Martinez can't stop". Of course, in the Auburn playbook it's spelled "misdurekshun", but that won't help us when they run it.”

• Former Dawg defensive back and current defensive coordinator at Auburn called the Arkansas Razorbacks a bunch of motherf%#^*rs during their game Saturday night. ESPN's cameras picked it up. I abstain here from jokes about Arkansas, the caliber of student-athlete at the University of Arkansas, and the percolation of Tommy Tuberville's consummate dickheadedness. Will Muschamp is awesome, though.

• Bloody Mary's and red high-heels: when Ole Miss fans rain refuse on their field, it's always classy. Nick Saban: not even a shabby genteel cell of politeness in his body. From Rebelsports.net:

Saban urged his players to keep their helmets on and get into the tunnel as quickly as possible. He said he wanted to make sure his players weren't "mugging."

"There is no class in that," Saban told reporters after the game. "I just want our players to represent the university with class. If [Ole Miss fans] want to be classless, that's their business."

The comment drew a sharp rebuke from [Ole Miss athletic director Pete] Boone. He said he talked Monday morning with Alabama athletic director Mal Moore, who reminded him of a similar incident last month when Crimson Tide fans threw garbage at Georgia players.

"To a certain extent maybe Nick is kind of like a parent who can see the faults of the children that live next door, but maybe not your own," Boone said.

• Florida State is ranked #102 in Division 1A in rushing offense. Putrid. Their #19 ranking in rush defense is nothing to crow about. Despite recruiting riches, the ACC can't cobble together the simulacrum of an offense outside of Boston College. Speaking of Clemson, Cris Ard at Tigerillustrated.com brags, “But again, when you're 12th in the nation in total defense, you've done a lot right through the first six games.” But again, bullshit.
  

• Jim from Duluth does his weekly recap of the Coach Richt call-in show. Richt says regarding recruiting: “we have a bunch of commitments and the class is just about full. We could take another RB, at least one OT, two if possible. DE, DT are about done. If there’s a great player out there, we’ve just got to get him. We need another safety in this class too.”

Here's my amateur exegesis on his statements.
1) “Another RB” is obviously Dontavious Jackson out of Heart County. He's visiting Clemson this weekend along with another major RB recruit, Jaime Harper from Florida. Clemson believes they lead for Harper. Of all of Dontavious Jackson's favorites—Clemson, LSU, Bama, Georgia, the Dawgs' depth chart looks to be the most inviting. Plus, we're home. “Another” is interesting in that it seems to imply that, with the commitment of miniature scatback Carlton Thomas a few weeks ago, five star athlete Richard Samuel will play linebacker. Unless Richt doesn't consider Thomas a real tailback but a specialty-situational player.

2) Two offensive tackles if preferable. The guys we want the most are no locks. Cordy Glenn likes Bama, and Zebrie Sanders is in Ohio.

3) The staff will take another guy on the defensive line. If they are finished, it means they feel good about Toby Jackson's commitment and he'll line up inside along DeAngelo Tyson. While Cornelius Washington is an end all the way, both Jackson and Jeremy Longo could be cross-trained to play inside and outside, like Ray Gant in the past. Athlete Bryce Ros could end up here as well. Another DT would compensate for the loss of Jeff Owens and Corvey Irvin next year and safeguard against any of the current players' lack of progress, Ricardo Crawford's fitness issues for example. Recruiting is forever a crapshoot.

4) A great player could pop up at any time, as a sleeper or a guy whose interest in Georgia increases due to commitment situations elsewhere. Recruiting allotments are quickly filling up. Some kids will inevitably flirt too long and find some doors eventually shut, although teams do find ways to accommodate great players. The only possibility that comes to mind at the moment is Arthur Brown, linebacker from Kansas. However, percentages are slim and none.

5) That other safety is probably Sanders Commings, currently torn between South Carolina and Georgia. UGA has one advantage in that he can play baseball in Athens as well. The number one safety in the nation according to Rivals.com, Rahim Moore, is a soft commitment to UCLA and really likes Georgia. It's unreasonable to expect him to leave California; his buddy Stafon Johnson didn't. Then again, NaDerris Ward did. Moore would also fit the bill of “great player out there.” Adding another safety probably points to Bacarri Rambo or Nick Williams moving to linebacker. If so, we sign Richard Samuel, Marcus Dowtin, Christian Robinson, Akeem Hebron, plus one of the above at linebacker. Then we wait to see where the two Statesboro recruits from last year, Justin Houston and John Knox, fall in. At the moment, although he was signed as DE, Justin Houston is at linebacker, and Knox plays safety.

6) No mention of wide receivers. There's been a lot of talk lately that A.J. Green may be looking South Carolina. The incomparable Chad Simmons at Ugasports.com squashed those rumors. Clemson still thinks they have a shot at Tavarres King. Apparently not. Richt's comment probably doesn't reflect on the status of Xavier Avery. The Major League Baseball draft will determine that. Let's hope whatever the outcome, he fares better than George Lombard.

Georgia-Vandy: Ebbing Out to Sea

Watching the first half of the Vandy game was like walking over field of metal shards. Georgia fans had seen that kind of uninspired, out-executed effort before. It wasn't deja vu: just your exasperatingly middling college football team. The one that couldn't fight off its blocks, tackle, or conceive of a pristine pass play. Yet, marvelous to say, we saw some motivated young men in the second half. It dawned on both lines that they were, actually, freakishly athletic. Tony Wilson grew up. By the grace of diminishing options, Knowshon Moreno proved he deserves thirty touches a game. While he hasn't made a spectacular down-field catch so far, he's been close. The wide receivers should take his upper-level seminar on diving for the ball.

The echo among the local pundits is that a win is a win, even against Vanderbilt. Let us remind ourselves that this is the first victory over an SEC East team since South Carolina in 2006. Hopefully, on Saturday an immature team learned a few more things about how to succeed. What carries over and improves during the by-week is anyone's guess—as is our chance against Florida. Partly UGA just doesn't have it together; but the national landscape of college football has become so F-U-B-A-R that diagnostics, prognostications, and female intuitions are uniformly inane.

Conventional wisdom has defenestrated to an early death. If a singular (though diaphanous) pattern is coming to the surface, it is the inability of teams to maintain excellence week-to-week, that is, more precisely the recurrence of the eternally damning “letdown”. LSU couldn't follow an epic victory over Florida with a win in Lexington. Don't expect Kentucky to follow their victory over LSU with another one over Florida. Truth? Hardly. A glimmer in chaos, the inexorable lurch of the human mind toward some fabricated shred of order. There's no reason to think Kentucky won't beat the Gators. Not only does Kentucky have excellent leadership embodied in an excellent quarterback, they're still in the role of David, in the light-headed high of a special season, emboldened by some divine enjoinder to overthrow the fat powers of the world.

Prediction: Florida 30, Kentucky 21.
Methodology: Going with your gut after repeated examinations, cross-examinations, cavings, revisions, and soul-crushing bewilderment.

Local Positives from the UGA Game:

• Yea, Tony Wilson. Way to find some yardage, son. I'm happy finally with our wide receiver rotation: Massaquoi, Bailey, Wilson, Goodman, Durham. What on earth happened to Kenneth Harris? You would think he'd be a perfect candidate for long “jump balls” much like the one thrown to Massaquoi on Saturday.

• It was assuring to see Darryl Gamble on the field at linebacker. After comments earlier this season from the coaching staff, I feared he might go the forgotten way of Olaolu Sanni-Osomo.

• Tripp Chandler is manning up. He's the undisputed master of stretching an eight yard catch into fifteen by putting his head down and bull-rushing up the field. Keep this up and “redemption” will be spelled with two “p's”.

• Stafford is close. I thought his accuracy and decision-making were fairly high. He made a probably ill-advised sidearm throw off his back foot that would have made Jeff George blush for ability and devil-may-care. His wide receivers must grab some of those deep balls. As Paul Westerdawg says, “[i]f they haul in those passes, Stafford's line goes from 16 of 31 for 201 to around 18 of 31 for 270 yards. We also punt two fewer times and likely walk away with at least two more field goals...at a minimum.

“College sports in general are about confidence and momentum. When you make plays, you gain the confidence to make more plays. Conversely, the little negative things often pile up to create big things, limiting your ability to build momentum. That's why our offense continues to look like Amateur Hour.”

• Reshad Jones is playing another game entirely, and it's a whole lot faster than the game everyone else is in. God bless him and his glamorous desires: one of those sixty-yard-touchdown strips will happen eventually. I'm told he's a solipsist.

• Knowshon Moreno. Also, Knowshon Moreno. Talented-nuts-talented. He plays like a man who believes he's covered in spiders. Based on a semi-bizarre episode with a towel in the first half, I suspect he may hate inanimate objects.

What If Wyatt Sexton Hadn't Been Bitten by That Tick?

I'm repeatedly shocked by the stunningly poor performances FSU has exhibited the past several years. Talent in Tallahassee cannot be an excuse, as the Seminoles have routinely paraded out an assemblage of top ranked recruits the likes of which would make everyone outside of Southern California blush. The blame has to be laid smack upon the coaches, and so it was last year with the sacking of the long vilified offensive coordinator, Jeff Bowden, head coach Bobby Bowden's son. Yet even with the best staff money can buy—Jimbo Fisher migrating from LSU to call plays and Rick Trickett from West Virginia to coach up the o-line—the Seminoles are still grossly underwhelming. Despite the star-wattage—the speed freaks and giants of unnatural skill, Florida State's offense has become the Blind Sisters of the Poor, the fabulous traveling show of doleful embarrassment whose singular ineptitude has an immediate leavening effect upon opponents' stats.

Coach: “Why are you crying?”
Middle Linebacker: “I can't help it, Coach. I'm just so happy. We're playing FSU this weekend.”
Coach's eyes begin to moisten: “Oh, it's OK, son. Don't fight it. Come here”
They embrace. Middle Linebacker: “I'm going to have like thirty tackles, a couple sacks, a forced fumble, and an interception.”
Coach: “I know. It'll be like playing Temple.”

I feel as if I'm overstating the case until I glance at running back Antone Smith's numbers from Thursday night. Wake Forest's vaunted defense held him to an average of just over two yards. Antone Smith, former five star tailback!? Thirty-two total rushing yards!?

Florida State Passing

X. Lee 24/45 283 2 2

Wake Forest Passing

R. Skinner 19/27 215 2 2

Florida State Rushing

A. Smith 14 32 0 8 (that would be a long of 8 yards)

Wake Forest Rushing

J. Adams 18 140 1 83

Florida State Receiving

G. Carr 8 108 1 50

Wake Forest Receiving

J. Adams 6 29 1 15

What the bejesus is going on down there? I ask out of curiosity, really. Is the line that bad? Do the players understand English?

While I applaud Jimbo Fisher's decision to stay with Xavier Lee at quarterback, in light of Drew Weatherford's habitual ineffectiveness, the choice should have been made a long time ago. Although Lee is prone to turnovers (and Weatherford wasn't?), his sheer physical attributes offer a better probability for scoring points. The kid can throw the ball the length of a football field. He can run too. And he gives an offense the incalculable advantage of flexibility—if the coaches are willing to exploit it.

Wake Forest prevailed over Florida State by a score of twenty-four to twenty-one; so why did Lee throw the ball forty-five times? This was not a shootout. Lee is not Peyton Manning: neither accuracy nor downfield decision-making are considered his stronger suits. Did the coaches forget he had legs? Is it true that between Lee and Antone Smith, neither could accumulate more than thirty-two yards on the ground? Perhaps there were injuries that I'm not aware of. That's right, the center and guards all have shingles. I forgot.

The answer to the question in the title is nothing (besides Sexton being spared messianic self-delusions caused by Lyme disease) because, at this point, it's not the quarterback's fault. An executive inability to grasp the obvious, an arrogant lack of strategic ingenuity, and a failing offensive line would doom anyone in that backfield.

But this is the ACC after all, where offensive productivity comes to die. Just ask Bobby's other boy, Tommy, who's also doing a miserly job of utilizing prodigious talent.

Pro-Cons

I'm just not sure how I feel about Hillary Clinton, although “ecstatic” is not a word that comes to mind. I've got plenty objections to perpetuating the thirty year rule of two families over the country. But what about Hillary individually? Enter curmudgeony Charles Krauthammer at the Washington Post to help me understand a character sustained by political pragmatism. He writes in a column entitled “The Great Navigator”:

I could never vote for her, but I (and others of my ideological ilk) could live with her -- precisely because she is so liberated from principle. Her liberalism, like her husband's -- flexible, disciplined, calculated, triangulated -- always leaves open the possibility that she would do the right thing for the blessedly wrong (i.e., self-interested, ambition-serving, politically expedient) reason.

I could never vote for her because the Clintons' liberal internationalism on display in the 1990s -- the pursuit of paper treaties and the reliance on international institutions -- is naive in theory and feckless in practice. And her domestic policy sees state intervention and expansion as the answer to every human ill from mortgage default to the common cold. Nonetheless, if 2008 is going to be a Democratic year, as it very well could, Hillary would serve the country better than any of her Democratic rivals.

It's curious what Krauthammer is doing in this op-ed. Steeling himself for another Clinton in the White House (“thank God she's not some insufferable ideologue”)? Marshaling the Right against its imminent foe? Ultimately, he's not pointed or enlightening. I defy him to tell me that John Edwards isn't equally a slippery sumbitch.

On another track, I know why professional conservatives are white middle-aged men. I don't get why they're all so cranky. You'd think with all that money to swim in, they'd have a little peace of mind too. Smile, Charles. Smile.

Falling Out

Macon Dawg over at Dawg Sports throws back the curtain to reveal one of the white elephants currently milling around Georgia's crowded room. What happens when your phenom quarterback never actually plays like a phenom?

Don't read too much into this folks, but Matt Stafford has now started 16 games for the red and black, and played in 19. He is just about a month and a half shy of being halfway through his career in Athens. I am squarely underwhelmed at this point, as he continues to throw some of the most powerful and pretty incompletions I've ever seen.

Tim Tebow, of course, would be Stafford's grand foil. Whereas Stafford is clearly a better NFL prospect considering his physical tangibles—not to mention experience in Georgia's more conventional style; Tebow is, flatly, a playmaker. He finds second and third targets, he hits backs five yards down the field as he's being sacked, he moves the chain, he wills the team forward. Tebow makes his team win. Maybe that's a product of Meyer's gimmicky misdirection offense and Tebow's marked ability to impersonate a rhinoceros. Maybe too much is being expected of Stafford in light of his “substandard” receivers and line. Nonetheless, I don't recall John Elway—the name most often thrown out in comparison—being surrounded by vaults of talent at Stanford. OK, so I have no memory whatsoever of Elway at Stanford.

Georgia fans might be spoiled (and I say that with some reservations). We've seen a quarterback take the entire team on his back and drag it toward the finish line before. Unfortunately, he didn't win. But Eric Zeier came pretty damn close against Florida in the rain, and especially during his senior year at Alabama. (And for all his detractors, I recall a share of games when Quincy Carter laid it on the line.)

We've also seen a player take three years to put it all together. When he finally did, we believed Shockley could do almost anything.


Macon Dawg continues

I'm still confident in Mark Richt. I still believe he's going to do great things in Athens. But the 8-6 stretch we are currently enduring has me wondering at what point "having growing pains" becomes simply "having a mediocre football team".

Since it's difficult to recruit better than Georgia over the past few years, the assumption, then, is that the problem is not talent. It's pep and prep. The panacea? Rennie Curran. Look for him to see significant playing time against Vandy if there aren't any severe effects from a concussion. Rennie Curran solves everything. Ferocity, form-tackling, faithfulness, fiduciary soundness, fulfilling mandatory quotas for little people... Yeah, he's small but disliking the kid on any grounds is near impossible. The credo of this particular move seems to run thusly: In the absence of leadership, turn to desire.

Films below the Meridian

The Dixie Film Fesival is coming up this weekend. Two specifically Southern films have come to my attention. One is The South Will Rise Again. Filmed outside of Nashville, it's about meth labs and zombies—I presume. Watch the trailer.

The other comes from the best good ol' boy, character-acting tall-drink-of-water from Adel, Georgia. Ray McKinnon's short film, The Accountant, which won an Academy Award, is masterful. He's made a feature—Randy and the Mob—filmed in Villa Rica, Georgia. I'm told it's a hoot. McKinnon's barnstorming the South premiering it in a dozen cities.

You'd think that an Academy Award winner would have an easier time of it. Ray McKinnon thought so too. It was going to be easier than this, but the studio, Capricorn Pictures, couldn't finance distribution after founder, Phil Walden, died. Yes, it's the same Phil Walden who ran Capricorn Studios in Macon, managed Otis Redding, and discovered Duane Allman. Phil had a knack for spotting Georgia talent.

McKinnon's blog chronicling the tour is absolutely charming.

Because I'm a Football Fan at Heart

And college football is a Southern kind of thing. Today's topic: the Arkansas Razorbacks and their controversial coach Houston Nutt, one of my favorite hobby horses. The following is my response in a dialogue on the state of the Hogs with my friend, Derek Jenkins. Read his weekly article at the Arkansas Times.

Nutt is serviceable, but after the past two years the marriage cannot be repaired. The new coach needs to be young, personable, and a helluva recruiter. Besides Nutt's playcalling, the lack of talent across the board is the Razorbacks' biggest deficiency (and perhaps the reason Nutt can't afford to discipline players). They're constantly scouring the JUCO ranks, which isn't a good sign. It means you can't get enough high school kids, and the JUCOs aren't around long enough to develop. Very few JUCOs, however highly touted, come in and contribute immediately. Look at Brent Schaeffer down at Ole Miss or Kenny O'Neal currently riding the bench at Tennessee. Plus, JUCOs always bring character-issues and academic baggage.

You look at the better teams in the SEC, and they've all out-recruited Arkansas over the past four or five years. LSU, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee. Kentucky has to be a fluke (they still have to play someone with a defense). Until last year, and with the exception of a high-profile qb, Alabama was usually neck-and-neck in recruiting rankings with Arkansas. The result for Arkansas, I think, is some ungodly position players but no backup on the lines or anywhere on defense. That defense needs a passel of four star recruits in the worst way. A new energetic young coach could do that: could seal Arkansas so folks like Joe Adams and Broderick Green don't get away and go into Missouri, Kansas, Florida, and Texas to cherry-pick. No more 5'5" slot receivers like Reggie Fish. When I saw Trey Biddy at Hawgsports.com raving about the Craw-Fish package, with Crawford and Fish on the field, I couldn't help but laugh. This is the answer? One midget plus one unproven player. The coaches would do better to implement some rollouts and bootlegs so Dick could see over his linemen.

I've been constantly amazed by the position changes out there. Robert Johnson moves to wideout fine. But then qb recruit Joe Chaisson moves to flanker. That's crazy: it leaves you going into the season with Casey Dick, a walk-on in Nathan Emert, and a true freshman in Dick the Younger on the depth chart. Either they did a poor job of evaluating Chaisson or the wide receiver corps is desperate.

It's also a real shame that Arkansas' schedule is filled with patsies this year. Even with a poor record, good out-of-conference games would get Arkansas on TV. And that would give McFadden a better chance to make his Heisman case undeniable.

Arkansas Recruiting Rankings:
2007–31
2006–26 (counting the Springdale 3)
2005–24
2004–22 (by virtue of signing so many recruits. Weston Dacus, Marcus Harrison, Matterial Richardson, and Freddie Fairchild were 2 star players–that's who you're counting on right now.)
2003–29
It'd be interesting to go back and see how many of these kids actually made it into school.

That said, I'd like to see Nutt keep his job. I'm a big Arkansas fan the rest of the way. I want to see them to get it together and beat the snot out of South Carolina and Tennessee.

On Republicans and Other Arthropods

Dan Bartlett, former White House counselor, excoriates the Republican field. That might not be the right denotation, but it certainly captures the acidic frankness of Bartlett's comments recently before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Washington Post has the details in its campaign diary. Some highlights:

Bartlett was more sympathetic to McCain, calling him the "biggest wild card," but he clearly felt the Arizona senator who lost the nomination to Bush in 2000 still faces enormous hurdles. "He is now where he does his best," Bartlett said. "He's lean, he's mean, he's out there, he's fighting in New Hampshire. The problem's going to be it always comes down to money, money, money. He doesn't have it. The irony could be he could see this thing play out the exact same way it did in 2000. He could win in New Hampshire and not have any infrastructure or funding to maximize it in a national campaign."

As it happens, the Bush adviser was most enthusiastic about a contender who seems to have even less chance. He called Huckabee the "best candidate," one who seems to most mirror Bush's own vision of compassionate conservatism. "He is the most articulate, visionary candidate of anybody in the field," Bartlett said. Initially, he admitted, he was perplexed that the former Arkansas governor was running. "But the more I watch him, the more impressed I become." When it comes to advocating conservative positions on social issues, "he does it in a very positive, optimistic way."

But Huckabee probably cannot win, Bartlett added. "He's got the obvious problems -- being from Hope, Ark., and, quite frankly, having the last name 'Huckabee,'" he said. "I hate to be so light about it, but it is, it's an issue. Politics can be fickle like that. I mean, you're trying to get somebody's attention for the first time. ... 'Huckabee? You've got to be kidding me! Hope, Arkansas? Here we go again.'"

President Huckabee. President Huck-a-bee. The former governor of Arkansas may have bigger problems than a surname that sounds as if it should be preceded by Cletus. The Arkansas Times is on the case of some mysteriously destroyed state hard drives before the Huckster left Little Rock. Needless to say, the author of the article, David Koon, has his own surname troubles.

The Day After, the One after That, So Forth

The Bulldog Nation is frenetic, individually taking stock of the program after being eviscerated and defecated on by those reprobate Tennessee Volunteers. How could that happen? Especially after suffering through the same surgical torture last year. I'll get to that consensus later. First, this is an excerpt of a rational, moderate post floating around the message boards. As a fan Suncoast Dawg is mad as hell, but he's done the service of wrapping his anger in thoughtfulness. I think it's a good summary and a good start.

I love UGA and would rather have Mark Richt, a man of principal, win
eight games a year than have Steve Spurrier and a perennial
championship. It’s more than about winning. It’s about winning the
right way. But I don’t think we are bad fans to acknowledge we have a
very big problem when you lose six straight division games. And I will
try to say this in the least negative way possible, competence can be
defined by learning from one's experiences. We duplicated performances
with Tennessee. I think it is fair to question that. If things go
unchanged, continue to expect the two or three meltdowns per year we
are getting. Coach Richt is a leader, but the ability to teach is
something completely different, and is not currently his job. That’s
what your staff is for. I remind you of the differences between a
great teacher in school versus all the mediocre ones. The ability to
teach is a gift. I am not sure you can suddenly become a great
teacher. And that is precisely what we are missing at the moment. I
fear it must be added as the results indicate it does not currently
reside in this staff. Coach Richt has an obligation to the program to
put its best foot forward, and as a man of integrity, I think he will.
He cannot enjoy getting beaten any more than we do. Trust that he will
hold his coaching staff accountable for the performance of his
players, that the kids will learn from the trials of the last two
seasons, and that in the off season he makes the difficult decisions
it takes to get us back on the right track.

Go Dawgs

He doesn't mention the name Van Gorder, but plenty others have. I wonder if it's asking too much to trust that Richt will shake up his staff in the off-season. Two of Richt's strongest virtues and faults are his loyalty and conscious attempt to diffuse blame.

R.I.P. Harry Lee

Harry Lee died last week. He was the sheriff of Jefferson Parish my entire life, and the only good ol' boy Chinese coon-ass I've ever known.



Genuinely beloved by the folks outside New Orleans.

UGA-UT Second Half

Like the man said.

• Tripp Chandler must be a hell of a blocker. We know he can't catch. Now, apparently, he can't stand either.

• This is like the West Virginia Sugar Bowl game. Everything that can go wrong has gone wrong. Only it's different. Against West Virginia the offensive was potent but shot itself in the foot again and again with fumbles. Here, everything is just totally incompetent. Totally.

• Ainge fell down! Ainge fell down!

• Oh ho, I don't want to get too excited, but touchdown, Georgia! Demiko Goodman made a spectacular catch. We finally challenged those freshman corners upfield. Bout damn time.

• Before the touchdown, I had a lot to say: we don't really stretch a defense laterally or vertically. Everything's fairly contained within the hash marks and within twenty years of the line of scrimmage. Certainly, we don't create mismatches through shifts or awkward formations. Perhap we don't have mismatches to exploit. Perhaps it's happening, misdirections and all, and I don't know it. I blame the offensive line—for everything.

• I was also going to mention that the Vandy-UGA game next week is shaping up to be epic. By Grapthar's hammer, Georgia shall be avenged against Tennessee, Vanderbilt, or Kentucky. Against somebody, I swear. If we win, should we have t-shirts made up?

• Joe Dirt in on the Spanish channel. Good compensation for not having the Red River Shootout.

• Their blockers are mowing us down. Is Tim Brando suggesting that we need FSU's Michael Ray Garvin? What on earth would make him say that? Truthfully, I'm OK with our corners. Garvin hasn't been a world-beater. Ugh, needed Keilin Johnson to intercept that.

• Unharried, Ainge throws another cool twelve yarder to one of his yeoman wide receivers. First down, Volunteers. At least they're not running on us. I think this is our JV defense. I saw this shabby team play shabby in person under old shabby Ray Goff.

• Richt: "They're just a goshdarn good team. That Ainge, he's a goshdarn good quarterback. I think we just got them on a day when everything went right for them." No shit, preach.

• Anyone else noticed our society is obsessed with the apocalypse. That's why Cormac McCarthy resonates. I'm not just talking about the Religious Right and the Left Behind and such. But bird flu. Anthrax. Mad Cow. Contaminated food systems. Terrorism. Mutually Assured Destruction. These things take hold more because of our cultural anxieties than their actual threat. I take MAD back. The obsession is, in fact, a result of the possibiliy of nuclear obliteration.

• Goodman is earning future playing time.

• This game just reemphasizes that the college landscape is week-to-week and in disarray. I wouldn't be surprised if Bama beats Tennessee. There are no certainties. Except the Georgia offense will not play like gangbusters. Fans were too willing in the preseason to bestow wunderkind status on Mike Bobo as an offensive coordinator.

• Tennessee is a faster, stronger, better coached team today. Gentlemen, you got your asses kicked. That's the sum of it all the way around. Joe Dirt, donde esta?

• If I'm Mark Richt, from here on out I run nothing but reverses and double reverses.

• What was the team motto in 2001, "Finish the Drill"? What about, "2007, Revitalizing Conventional Wisdom"?

• Lightning in North Carolina, hooray! ABC's going to the Texas game. Wait, not before Craig James vomits a paricularly pedestrian kind of incoherence all over the set. OK, I changed the channel.

• Panning for positives. I don't think there was "a play of the game." They're going to select the trickeration, I know. They'd do better to show an accelerated montage of Tennessee executing. I hope this is how we look against Florida after our byweek.

• The flavor of the season is the direct snap to the running back—the Tebow package. I know we're not going to institute it, but I wonder how Brown or Lumpkin would fare in that package. Or Rennie Curran. What if we shook up the two deep lineup by flipflopping offensive and defensive players? Reshad Jones is clearly a wide receiver. What if I had gills?

• This game is an echo of the Quincy Carter years. Also known as the Tee Martin years.

• Lumpkin looks good. Let's play a little pitch and catch. Good. Stafford just made a phenomenal throw to Kenneth Harris in the endzone. Harris should have caught it. Stafford should never have thrown it. He loses accuracy and vision on the run. Two of his ugliest interceptions came after being flushed out of the pocket against South Carolina last year and Bama this year.

• Steve Bueurlein is talking about the catbird seat. I long for the catbird seat. Stafford sure throws those fades lazily. Questionable pass interference call against UT.

• Clemson, you failed to acknowledge that your points this season came against sub-par competition. Tommy Bowden is on the rack. Maybe Clemson and Arkansas can pull the old jerkwater football coach switcheroo. They did it once before with Danny Ford and Ken Hatfield.

• That was a token play for Andy Bailey. Huge disappointment as a scholarship player. Still, just a kid. Senior; native of Athens, Tennessee.

• Adios, chicas. I'm off to a fantasia of beer where I'll toast to Erik Ainge's graduation.

UGA-UT: Better Than the Real Thing

This is my shot at live-blogging on another college football Saturday in the South. I'm in Monteagle, Tennessee. I've been egregiously bad this morning—woke up too late to meet my friend in Chattanooga and head up to Knoxville for the Tennessee-Georgia tilt. He's pissed. I'm going to enjoy the game here on the porch with a glass of bronze whiskey to ease my nerves. I, like every other UGA fan residing in North Georgia knows, that no matter how poorly the Volunteers look, they always bring it. I fear and loathe, and loathe and fear, Erik Ainge.

I'm not going to scribble down every little jot of minutiae that passes through my skull. And live-blogging has never been about logical argument; it runs on intuition and impetuosity. Dear reader, enjoy the waves of a dulling cognition as I enjoy lukewarm Jack Daniels. Caveat: no editing.

• First, I have a carryover from last week. I watched the Bama-FSU game. Same old story. Poor offense performance by both teams. Double-tough John Parker Wilson has awful fundamentals. Watch Tom Brady: you almost never see him throw off his back foot. He's got the smoothest body action of any quarterback in football, and the ball is almost always where it needs to be. But back to my main point, which is FSU has wasted more talent the past few years than anyone else in the nation. They've had five star recruits aplenty. Where's the production? Except at linebacker, absent. Barring Xavier Lee bonehead day, they'll beat a decrepit NC State today easily.

• As a Georgia fan, I'm loath to ascribe FSU's demise to Coach Richt's departure to Athens. But there's no doubt that QB play in Tallahassee has plummeted since the Parson left.

• Wisconsin finally lost. They needed to. No top ten/top five team should ever sweat out a win against The Citadel. Good for the Zooker. He's a liar of colossal proportions, which makes him perhaps the best recruiter in the nation (John Blake at North Carolina ain't no bum). Let that Florida team last year be a warning to the Big Ten.

• Georgia Tech lost. Clemson, you're on the block to match their unevenness.

• UGA game coming on. I'm a dipshit for not waking myself up earlier. People are walking by outside. I hope for their sake they're going to neighbors to watch the game. Doesn't look like it. I think the females are starved albinos.

• I expect the Dawgs to give up a lot of yards. I'll have an ulcer by the end of the night. For all of his arm strength, Stafford doesn't have the accuracy yet.

• Oooh, early blitzing. I like it. I think you can let Ainge dink and dunk. That's probably defensive coordinator Willie Martinez's gameplan anyway, and it's nigh unstoppable. Martinez likes to make teams work for it. Stack the box, make running difficult. Challege Tennessee to throw it over the top to their young wideouts. My gleeful response to blitzing is entirely irrational. Oooh, shiny!

• Coker's hard to bring down. There's a substance abuse joke here. He doesn't look like a guy who got busted for smoking up (again) in August.

• Touchdown Tennessee. This is what we expected. Tennessee had their backs against the wall and a week off to prepare. “Fulmer's job is on the line.” Georgia needs to score thirty (30). I think at the minimum we have to beat Florida this year.

• That's the Michigan State I know. Tony Wilson catch! I wish I could have said that against South Carolina. Speaking of which, I'm a big fan of their safety Emmanuel Cook. He made it back to the field from a school suspension for possessing a firearm outside of a university dorm and an emergency appendectomy faster than anyone else in recent memory. He's a helluva anchor for the “best” secondary in the nation.

• UGA timeout. If everything goes standard, we'll burn the other two by the midpoint of the second quarter. In the words of T-Model Ford, Jack Daniel's time!

• Let's see some curls against those freshmen corners. Georgia fans, when's the last time you saw a wide open receiver? Or the last time a pass was grossly overthrown into the hands of one of your defensive backs?

• That's no Jack. I'm not sure what it is. It was in a purple plastic workout bottle. Dr. Pepper time!

• Defensive stop. No offsides this series. All we need is Ainge with cagey, David Greene-like veteran smarts. Colquitt kicks away from Henderson. The Volunteer Nation dreads special teams.

• Dr. Pepper and scotch? Is this big black guy in the High Life commercial the same one that dances on the goalpost for Dr. Pepper (I think)? The latter commercial was made for middle-aged white women everywhere.

• Someone's has got to pick up these outside blitzes.

• Michigan won, giving up twenty-two points. I'm becoming a big fan of Mgo Blog and his overkill analysis. I'm sure he'll have a field day with yet more evidence of the Wolverines' semi-ineptitude.

• Why can't we watch the Texas-Oklahoma game? ABC and ESPN need to set up a more democratic scheme than GAMEPLAN for the marquee games.

• Tennessee with the end around toss. The porch is looking better. Not even a sideline shot of Jim Bob Cooter could temper my feelings about that play. Screw you, Cutcliffe, and your irresistible offensive genius. If Ole Miss could have pulled off an Orgeron-Cutcliffe power sharing deal, they'd be the juggernaut of college football. I need a better game to flip to, so I don't have to watch Tennessee's TD replays.

• What do you tell the team down early? Hey, they came back on us last year to score fifty. Is that reassuring? We really haven't had the ball. I can't complain about not running enough. All our offensive woes normally come down to the line, and I'm not intelligent enough to comment on their play.

• Blocked punt by Tennessee. Give me a freaking break. If I weren't “blogging,” I'd be throwing rocking chairs through the screen. Two personal foul penalties. Almost equal to a punt. Still optimistic.

• Rennie Curran, our Liberian midget mascot linebacker, is in the game. I can live with 14-7 at half. Georgia needs to score regardless. First down Tennessee. If Seth Adams for Ole Miss can do it, you bet Ainge can. I'm going to lock myself in a room tonight with a couple bottles of gin and a copy of The Wild Bunch. Die-ing-oh-so-slow-ly.

• Shot of dejected UGA fans. You should feel the gentle breeze here, and I'm warming to the Dr. Pepper-scotch combination. Wonder if Noyle's sitting in the sun in Neyland Stadium. Gosh, I hope not.

• Ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha. Ha ha. What did Nietzsche say about the eternal yea? Admit it: Existence is absurd.

• Good news is, there's a consolation game tonight. Geaux Tigers!

• Both lines are killing us with penalties. And our blitzes have yet to touch Ainge. We can't move the ball. Period.

• About to go off-line for a while. I'm going to flagellate myself until the Dawgs start tackling better.

Athens Prepares for Evasive Maneuvers

How about eating on paper plates for the next six months?

His point is unmistakable: every drop counts and every suggestion on how to conserve water is invaluable. Now is the critical time for the creative problem-solvers of the Athens community to come together.

“My hope is that people use the quick and easy technology of the Internet to do what it was supposed to do, and that is to disseminate information to help make a change. A change at this level is really late in the game, but to ignore a dilemma of this magnitude at any point is a sin.”

Water woes.

Good Sense Beats Mindless Luxury for the First Time

Stone Mountain is shutting down one of the most fatuous ideas of all time: Coca Cola's Snow Mountain.

"While the park is considered a commercial entity and had all required approvals to develop and open this attraction, we understand the concerns of our local citizens," the statement said. "We will explore all options for how we can continue to bring this snow park to Atlantans."

The move comes after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the park had started making snow Tuesday for the "Coca-Cola Snow Mountain" attraction.

The plan has been to create a 400-foot-long slope of ice and snow that could be used as a sledding and play area. The attraction had been scheduled to open on Nov. 10, prior to the controversy over the water usage involved.

North Georgia is suffering through a monumental drought, with the toughest area-wide water restrictions ever imposed. Word of the snow-making operation came as Gov. Sonny Perdue issued a proclamation asking Georgians to take shorter showers to help preserve the water supply.

At maximum production, the Stone Mountain park snow maker would use 38 gallons of municipal water a minute. The plan was operate the machinery 18 hours a day, producing more than would melt. In 30 days, the 1.2 million gallons of water would produce a 2-foot-thick layer of ice to form the slope's base.

Albert Bronander, president of Snow Magic, a company that partnered with the park to produce the attraction, said the park planned to use water drawn from DeKalb County's water lines instead of pulling it from the park's lake because "we want the water to be pure white." The park uses lake water for golf course watering.

I hate to keep cutting and pasting, but the AJC article is just too good.

Jeff Bollig, spokesman for Lawrence, Kansas-based Golf Course Superintendents Association of America said on Tuesday that the amount of water the park would use each day to make snow —about 41,000 gallons— is a fraction of what golf courses in Atlanta use during the average summer day when restrictions aren't in effect, as they are now (courses are limited to watering greens).

"Georgia courses use about 215,000 gallons a day," Bollig said. "But we like to put that into perspective. On the average day, this country uses 408 billion gallons of water. What golf course uses is less than one half of one percent of that." Also, the vast majority of golf courses supply their own water instead of tapping into municipal drinking water.

I just vomited in my mouth.

For Coke, the controversy comes amid a public relations campaign to show consumers and investors in the 200 countries where it operates that the soda-maker is a good steward of water. Chairman Neville Isdell has made numerous speeches and appearances around the world this year to talk about the company's commitment to use less water in its bottling plants and help underdeveloped countries generate healthier fresh water supplies.

HT: Dan.

Up in Smoke

This was my take on the Talmo fire for Flagpole:

Take Highway 129 north out of Athens, cross I-85, and in a few minutes you find yourself in Talmo. The tiny town can’t be seen from the highway, but you can tell it’s there thanks to an unavoidable stink. It smells like rotting carcasses have been burned, and there’s good reason for that: they have. But beyond the lingering stench and sooty remains is one of the most pressing conflicts facing the landscape of North Georgia: with the swift suburbanization of the countryside, what’s the fate of local agriculture?

On Sept. 5, a two-acre wastewater lagoon at Agri-Cycle in Talmo caught fire, sending up 100-foot flames and a gigantic column of black smoke visible for miles around. The first emergency responders arriving on the scene found themselves mostly useless. Being incinerated was a sludge of grease and chicken fat - waste products from local poultry processing plants - that couldn’t be attacked with water hoses. By the next day, firefighters had finally put out the flames with a chemical foam solution. Meanwhile, neighbors were advised to stay indoors until the smoke cleared.

The first news reports indicated suspicions of arson. According to a Sept. 6 article in the Gainesville Times, a neighbor claimed the fire started soon after an individual on an all-terrain vehicle drove down to the lagoon and then departed. In that same article, allegations were made by another neighbor that Agri-Cycle was getting rid of its evidence.

Talmo residents have been complaining about the environmental impact of Agri-Cycle since 2005. A subsidiary of Zurix Water in Thomaston, GA, the company moved into the old Valley Farms facility in northwest Jackson County to utilize the site’s wastewater treatment capacities, along with Valley Farms‘ transferable wastewater-processing license. In 2004, Agri-Cycle began to receive nitrate-compound organic waste from poultry producers, treat it in anaerobic lagoons, and then spray the liquid effluent onto the land for final filtration. Sprayfields are standard procedure in the poultry industry. Agri-Cycle’s innovation was to turn them into a horticultural enterprise, using the wastewater to fertilize wholesale landscaping plants growing on the property.

But on Aug. 21 of this year, the Environmental Protection Division (EPD) shut the company down for a host of violations. Among other things, Agri-Cycle had constructed two lagoons without state approval, overloaded the sprayfields, received domestic waste, and contaminated Allen Creek with fecal coliform bacteria. (Attention Athens: Allen Creek runs snug against Agri-Cycle’s burned lagoon and eventually into the Middle Oconee River.)

Agri-Cycle had appealed the decision on Aug. 30 and was still allowed to operate. However, by Sept. 7, the EPD Director and the Attorney General filed a restraining order, closing the plant and giving it 30 days to meet compliance. On that same day, the office of Georgia Insurance and Fire Safety Commissioner John Oxendine ruled the fire an accident: a short-circuit on an electrical pump used to irrigate from the lagoon sparked the blaze. For the citizens of Talmo, it was all curious timing.


The day after the blaze, Richard Harville, Agri-Cycle’s owner, told 11Alive News that the EPD action was “politically motivated.” He pointed a finger at the neighboring homeowners in Cedar Hollow subdivision, who had lodged the bulk of odor complaints, and the anonymous horde of eager land developers.

It’s difficult for most observers not to sympathize with homeowners whose houses smell like sustained putrescence, and simply dismiss Harville’s statements. It was clear from EPD’s citations that the company was taking on more waste than its facility could process. On the other hand, and in the broad sense - regardless of whether his company is guilty of its many apparent violations - Harville’s position reveals that the Agri-Cycle story has been, in part, another in a swelling body of local conflicts between the agricultural industry and new residential development in North Georgia.

Along those lines, it is to some degree pertinent to ask if the neighbors in Cedar Hollow would be happy if Valley Farms was still processing chickens on the site. Or, what if the old McEver meat-packing company that preceded it were still operating out of the building? There may still have been as many complaints about foul odors and flies, though those operations were active long before new residents moved in and started shouting, “Not in my backyard.” The poultry industry, meanwhile, is big business in Georgia, and its huge volume of waste has to go somewhere. That Agri-Cycle stinks is unfortunate (and perhaps less unfortunate than its other problems), but the economics of an agricultural industry necessitate unappetizing after-effects.

Those exact effects are encroaching upon Northeast Georgia in general. In the past decade, pushed by rampant development from Atlanta, poultry companies have begun to migrate from Cherokee, Forsyth and Hall Counties east toward the South Carolina line. Crystal Farms, the largest commercial egg producer in Georgia, has almost totally relocated to Royston. Others, like Chestnut Mountain Eggs, have contracted with growers in the less populated (for now) northeastern counties. Coming with them are critical land-use issues and potential threats to the health of the local environment.

The fire is long put out, the TV crews are gone, and the sensationalism of the incident has passed. Agri-Cycle is facing increased pressure from the top levels of state government against its surviving in Talmo, and it looks like the neighborhood will finally be cleaned up. North Georgia, though, is still in an identity - and environmental - crisis.

Donn Cooper

Talmo: First Coda

The AP has published a follow-up to the Talmo fire. Read it here.

Offended residents claim the smell — which they describe in scarcely printable terms — is causing land values to drop, neighbors to move and the quality of life to plummet.

Lawyers for Agri-Cycle are contending that the company's is doing everything it can to meet EPD standards, in addition to the fact that the EPD's allegations that the company has polluted the creek are inaccurate.

I actually defended Agri-Cycle, to a degree, in my report on the fire incident for Flagpole. Then again, I've never been a fan of Atlanta suburbanites.

Water First

Resuming blogging again:

Jay Bookman, of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has a provocative column taking government to task for not preparing for the drought. For instance:

So why weren't those folks prepared? Why didn't they strengthen levees, tighten building codes, prepare evacuation plans? Why did they build in flood plains? Why did they let themselves be victims?

Today, that line of questioning strikes closer to home. Like hurricanes in New Orleans, droughts in Georgia are inevitable — it's not a matter of whether a drought will hit, but when. In fact, scientists have warned for decades that with rapid growth and a limited water supply, our margin of safety was getting smaller and smaller.

Local Cassandras have been warning North Georgia and that big ol' bully Atlanta about this situation for years. I've heard the state is fighting to pipe water down from the Tennessee River where it curls just into northwest Georgia--the good city fathers will buy/steal it wherever they can. For some of us, it may finally be time to abandon ship.

How about a strategic water policy for the state and even the nation? It's a pleasant dream. I leave you another one, the distant memory of the fountain at Herty Field on the UGA campus. This was in the Spring, the salad days. (Sorry, no pic. North Little Rock free wi-fi is being froward at the moment.)

Amendment: