GwinnettForum | Number 19.92 | March 3, 2020
NEW APARTMENT COMPLEX COMING: A midyear opening is expected for a new $49 million apartment complex on Steve Reynolds Boulevard at Venture Parkway near Duluth. It consists of 286 apartments, and will be called “The Rey,” from Quintus Corporation of Atlanta. The Rey will offer one and two bedroom units. (See more details below in Upcoming.)
TODAY’S FOCUS: Recognize that a Quarter for a Shopping Cart May Be Cheap Insurance
EEB PERSPECTIVE: Georgia’s Impact on the Presidential Race Getting Less and Less Likely
ANOTHER VIEW: Do Something To Reduce Frenzy at Presidential Debate
SPOTLIGHT: Renasant Bank
FEEDBACK: Another Consideration of What Causes Fluctuations in the Market
UPCOMING: Gwinnett Place Area To Get New Apartment Complex, The Rey
NOTABLE: Building with Earlier Functions Now Houses Kudzu Gallery and Studios
RECOMMENDED: Gods and Heroes: Myths and Epics of Ancient Greece by Gustav Schwab
GEORGIA TIDBIT: Whites, Blacks, and Other Persons Took Turns Exhorting Converts
MYSTERY PHOTO: Monumental Structure Over Street is New Mystery
LAGNIAPPE: Organizations Participate in Patriotic Observance in Gainesville
CALENDAR: Learn about the 1895 Cotton State Exposition Tonight at Environmental Center
A quarter for a shopping cart may be cheap insurance
By Jim Freeman
LILBURN, Ga. | Gwinnett County is a grocery shopper’s utopia with a boundless number of retail stores from which to choose. They are all somewhat similar in their store layout. Each offers a slightly different inventory, making them customer appealing.
Freeman
One significant thing they all have in common is the grocery cart….or do they?
There is one chain that offers the most thoughtful way to have customers use the cart and return it from the parking lot. The store is ALDI’s. If you want to use their carts, be sure you have a quarter with you. You insert the coin, use your cart, then return it, and your quarter pops back into your hand.
Around the Aldi stores, there is not a single shopping cart to be seen languishing around the parking lot and awaiting to be used as a battering ram into an automobile. Such banging into a cart may cost into the thousands of dollars to have repaired! Thanks to Aldi, we are safe from their cars becoming a danger!
We are all at the mercy of the person emptying the shopping cart but deciding to discard it and determining which car to park beside, with little consideration for a downhill roll and the speed with which it will impact a car and cause the need for a paint job.
Recently, I saw an elderly lady bring her shopping cart to the rear of her car, stop and then walk around the car to open the side door. When she returned, her loaded shopping cart was 20 cars away down through the parking lot and resting against a $50,000 SUV.
A store employee retrieved it for her, but no one could do anything for the owner of the SUV, who probably wondered what happened.
Now, what is the solution? The Aldi system is working and working well. So why
shouldn’t all stores that provide shopping carts not use that system? Can you imagine the number of automobiles that are banged by shopping carts in Gwinnett County over 12 months? And how about the many shopping carts you see scattered abandoned along our roadways?
Shopping carts have attracted young people as playthings since their use began. I remember a young man back in the 1970s, who while looking for a little excitement nearly had a tragic ending to his life in a shopping cart. He wrapped himself in foam rubber and crawled into a shopping cart, coerced a couple of friends to push him up the street behind a K-Mart and roared down the hill into the side of the building. He survived, but must have felt the pain of the incident. He wanted to know if he could survive such a challenge. He was lucky.
Yes, shopping carts remain a challenge to all of us. Many of us have had to avoid one while traversing a parking lot. I always think to myself a 25-cent coin at Aldi’s prevents such a challenge. It removes the threat of an expensive encounter with a wayward shopping cart. Give this some thought while you wait for someone next time in a parking lot. A quarter for a cart really amounts to cheap insurance.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Georgia’s impact on presidential race getting less likely
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
MARCH 3, 2020 | Watching the Democrats wrangle for the nomination for president is much like watching a sporting event. Except that is long and drawn out, not so much like a fast-paced basketball game as it is an ever-so-boring, several-day cricket match. Add to this that the political commentators have a field day of putting out new views daily based on the sketchiest of information, the little matters that doesn’t amount to much.
In South Carolina’s primary on Saturday, Joe Biden’s smashing victory — he won a majority of the votes in every South Carolina county — turned the presidential contest into a real horse race. Yet with only three days from the South Carolina primary to today’s Super Tuesday voting, the entire picture could turn around by the time the California votes come in around midnight tonight.
Biden
The voting in South Carolina also prompted three contenders — Pete Buttigieg, Tom Steyer and Amy Klobuchar — to drop out of the race. We may hear from young Buttigieg again on the national level. Never a major factor as a candidate, Steyer was entertaining as a new face among the possible. He showed what big spending could do, raising his stature in South Carolina from zero to finishing third with 11 percent of the vote. Minnesota’s Klobuchar will remain in the U.S. Senate and will be heard from again.
What we’ll be looking for in the Super Tuesday results will be which of the major candidates might do so poorly in these 14 states to cause another one of them to drop out of the race. Yet the Buttigieg pull-out might give Elizabeth Warren more strength.
The so-called lead that Bernie Sanders has is not much of a lead in that only four states have had voting so far. Sanders and Biden will keep on battling after tonight.
Sanders
The one factor that hasn’t seen lots of print about Bernie Sanders is that he is technically not a Democrat, but an independent. Add to that his continued fascination with more-open Socialist tendencies, and you ask yourself: will the party back-room regulars and superdelegates allow someone who is not “one of them” to grab the top of the ticket? If so, it could be the signal for a realignment of the Democrats as never before.
Then there is the staying power of Michael Bloomberg, that is, the staying power of his money. With the Democrats continuing to trim the field from the 20 or so that once were seeking the nod, Mr. Bloomberg comes from being unannounced to saying that he is the one person who can directly take on Donald Trump. And he’s making more and more heads turn as the race continues. Of course, he also has the money to stay in the race to the very end.
Forget his policies when Bloomberg was mayor of New York. There are two major elements that bring to question the Bloomberg candidacy. First, he was a Republican when he was the New York mayor, and now he has changed parties. That can hurt him. Second, his age is 77, even older than Donald Trump. Will Democratic hard-liners allow this guy to be their standard-bearer?
Today’s primaries will tell us a lot. Then comes key primaries in several states (among them the key states of Michigan, Missouri, Washington, Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio) before the Georgia primary on March 24.
Georgia’s primary is politically a long way off. Could it be that the Georgia timing might prove to be the turning point in the 2020 Democratic nomination?
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Do something to reduce frenzy at presidential debates
The spin room after the Charleston debate. Photo courtesy Charleston City Paper.
By Andy Brack
Publisher, Charleston City Paper
CHARLESTON, S.C. | Halfway through the nationally-aired South Carolina presidential debate on February 25, my television got turned off. Too much bickering. Too little substance. Too much crosstalk.
There’s got to be a better way for voters to get information than big spectacles where candidates have 75 seconds to answer direct questions and challengers can pipe in for only a few seconds. More serious discussion is needed.
From a production standpoint, CBS did a beautiful job in transforming the Charleston Gaillard Center into a red-white-and-blue presence that looked great and felt right. But what went wrong during South Carolina’s moment in the spotlight was the format and how moderators didn’t moderate. A few observations:
- Microphones have off buttons. During particularly frenzied or tense moments during the two-hour debate, candidates started interrupting and yelling to get words in edgewise, which led mostly to chaos. At one point, former Vice President Joe Biden questioned whether rules would be enforced, asking, “Can we just speak up when we want to?”
At that moment moderators Norah O’Donnell and Gayle King should have stopped the debate, turned off the microphones and warned candidates that only one microphone “hot” or on at a time if the crosstalk continued. (That’s the magic of electronic media — microphones can be turned off.) Candidates would have settled down and a sense of decorum would have returned.
- Better moderators. The moderators just didn’t control the debate. They seemed to be out of their element, letting candidates run the show, which is why it often seemed like organized chaos. In the future, perhaps professional, trained moderators who know how to run debates, not television anchors, should be in charge. It also wouldn’t have hurt if a local reporter or two had been part of the panel of questioners.
- Better questions. The Charleston debate was for a national audience, especially since the Feb. 29 primary is to be followed March 3 by Super Tuesday voting in 14 states. In Charleston, where a mayor’s race hyper-focused in November on flooding and climate change, it was telling there were no questions about either — in a campaign where climate is getting more and more attention.
So what’s an alternative to the debate nonsense? How about this: Instead of a fancy show that costs lots of money, how about giving a few minutes of unrestricted television time to candidates to share whatever they want in prime time? Follow this with live or videotaped short answers to three or four questions from the national and local media?
If, for example, each early voting state had a debate in this format, each candidate could address the national audience on big issues in a five minute statement, which would be a short version of a stump speech. Then the forum host could have reporters ask short regionally- or locally-focused questions for candidates to give one minute answers.
Such a format would keep the broadcast from going on forever and it could be paid for with commercial breaks.
It’s hard enough to figure out which candidate might be best for the country without having to sift through noise, crosstalk and too much yelling. Political parties and candidates need a better way to engage voters in prime time. Some free TV time mixed with answers to probing questions might be just the ticket. Doing things the same way in the future is going to lead to more disasters.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Renasant Bank
The public spiritedness of our sponsors allows us to bring GwinnettForum.com to you at no cost to readers. Today’s sponsor is Renasant Bank, which has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Miss. bakery. Since then, we have grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with approximately $12.9 billion in assets, approximately 2,500 associates, and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of our banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people we serve. At Renasant Bank, we understand you because we work and live alongside you every day.
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Another consideration of what causes market fluctuations
Editor, the Forum:
Just a few thoughts in light of George Wilson’s column regarding the economy. He suggests that the economy is driven by stock buy-backs and the low cost of borrowing.
There is a thought that the public markets and the economy are 100 percent correlated. History tells us that this is not necessarily the case. The economy is a complex organism, with rather futile attempts to measure it in a variety of ways, from CPI to GDP, and other measures.
It does seem to be the case that corporate earnings are driven, to some degree, by stock buy-backs, and the low cost of debt. And, I would suggest that low interest rates are pushing savers to look for other alternatives, including stocks and real estate.
Covid 19 is taking the hit for this week’s underwhelming market performance. The virus is a convenient scapegoat. A contrarian thought is that there was far too much bullish sentiment among investors.
The correlation between the yield on 90 day Treasuries, and 10-year notes is tracked by many. History tells us the yield curve inverts anywhere from 6 to 24 months prior to start of a recession.
The price-earnings ratio, especially as tracked by CAPE (Cyclically Adjusted PE Ratio) or the Shiller PE Ratio, is often quoted to justify that stock prices are overvalued. That is one measure, though earnings can be managed to meet a variety of objectives. Free cash flow yield tends to be a better measure of corporate performance, in our opinion.
And speaking of Covid 19, I’ll suggest research into the number of deaths from flu each year, in the U.S. compared to the number of deaths worldwide attributed to C19. Of course, fear and anxiety draws viewers and readers to the various cable channels, which feeds their advertising rates.
Which is why I like GwinnettForum so much. You and your team choose not to bottom feed, like so much that’s posted online, or available for viewing. Keep up the good work.
— Randy Brunson, Duluth
- Send us your thoughts: We encourage you to send us your letters and thoughts on issues raised in GwinnettForum. Please limit comments to 300 words. We reserve the right to edit for clarity and length. Send feedback and letters to: elliott@brack.net
Gwinnett Place area getting new apartment complex, The Rey
Some 286 new apartments are coming to the Gwinnett Place Community Improvement District. The Rey on Reynolds, a $49 million apartment community, located at the corner of Steve Reynolds and Satellite Boulevards, has announced its formation.
This new 286-unit complex includes one-and-two-bedroom floor plans and features state-of-the-art amenities. That includes a fully equipped two-story fitness and wellness center, complete with a CrossFit gym and yoga studio, a private courtyard featuring an outdoor fitness area, a grill park and an outdoor living room with fire pit; bocce ball court; a giant Jenga game area; and an expansive open lawn.
The Rey’s second phase, to be developed by Knoll Development, will be a mixed-use development adjacent to the community. This new development will feature innovative retailers and restaurants, which will add to Gwinnett Place’s annual retail spending of $1.1 billion.
Joe Allen, executive director of the Gwinnett Place CID, says: “Gwinnett Place hasn’t seen a development like this in the past decade. We are thrilled about it. The GPCID staff and board hopes this new development will serve as a catalyst for other developers to reimagine Gwinnett Place and realize the incredible potential the area offers.”
The Rey, which is owned and developed by Quintus Corporation, is preleasing and will complete construction soon. Kelly Keappler, vice president of Quintus Corporation, says: “The diversity of Gwinnett Place’s community and the close to 30,000 millennials living in the area were key drivers in our choosing to develop The Rey here. We believe this development will help to transform Gwinnett Place into a more live, work and play environment.”
Historic building now houses Kudzu Gallery and Studios
By Lucy Brady
NORCROSS, Ga. | A particular building in the city of Norcross has a most interesting history that few know or remember. In its past, this building has been a telephone office, a library, a baseball museum, and a dark, less-than-inspiring space for artists.
That is, until recently. Now, in a cooperative effort of the City of Norcross and an emerging group of artists, it has become Kudzu Gallery and Studios. It has evolved into its present function as a light, bright, appealing gallery and artists’ studios.
Located at 116 Carlyle Street in downtown Norcross, the building is owned by the City. For 14 years, it has operated as an art center originally called Kudzu Art Zone and now known by its more descriptive Kudzu Gallery and Studios. The name Kudzu was chosen for its rapid growth, tenacity and omnipresence in the southeast. A group of alert artists, the Berkley Lake Artists, needed a gallery and studio space and together with the City of Norcross, renovated the building and made it into the cheerful, pleasant space it now is.
As its name implies, Kudzu continues to grow, becoming an arts destination for art lovers and offers classes, workshops, and open gallery sessions. It has good space and lighting, plus camaraderie among artists giving help and critiques from one another. Exhibit of original works take place about every six weeks, with opening receptions for the public with food, wine and an opportunity to meet the artists and enjoy festive social evenings with friends. Also, it is a way to keep up with the local art scene and purchase art for one’s home that will have special appeal, being created by an artist you have met.
Kudzu Gallery and Studios adds to the city’s already attraction as a favorite place for entertainment, dining and culture. Kudzu is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization whose goal is to support local artists while serving art buyers and the community and shining as a cultural hub for the area.
Kudzu Gallery and Studios’ vision is to be a multi-disciplinary place of creativity and growth, regionally recognized as a leader in the presentation and support of artists and emerging visual art forms. In doing so, it encourages exploration and involvement across the diverse cultures of local communities. Kudzu is open Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Its address is 116 Carlyle Street in Historic Norcross. The website is kudzuartzone.org.
Gods and Heroes: Myths and Epics of Ancient Greece
by Gustav Schwab
From Raleigh Perry, Buford: I read mythology all the time. Most of life’s secrets can be unlocked by reading these things of bygone days. This book is, beyond doubt, the best one that I have ever read. There are over 740 pages of text in the book. But that is not a problem since the way it is arranged, the myths are presented in short, but complete, segments. That makes it an easy book to read a whip-stitch of it, put it down and read another when you want to. It is probably in print now by some publisher, but there are tons of used copies around.
- An invitation: what books, restaurants, movies or web sites have you enjoyed recently? Send us your recent selection, along with a short paragraph (100 words) as to why you liked this, plus what you plan to visit or read next. Send to: elliott@brack.net
Whites, blacks and others took turns exhorting converts
(From previous edition)
Revivalism took many forms. In the East revivals were carefully guided and disciplined affairs, governed by itinerant evangelist Charles Finney’s “new measure” techniques. But Finney was merely taming the more exuberant forms of revivalism, especially the camp meeting, that were born on the western frontier. Camp meetings lasted up to five days and featured revival preaching day and night. Whites, blacks, men, women, and persons of all denominations took turns exhorting would-be converts. Repentant sinners were asked to approach the “anxious bench,” where they sat with all eyes on them until they were converted to Christ’s cause. Camp meetings induced sensational results: some observers described participants laughing out loud, barking like dogs, falling down as if dead, and experiencing “the jerks.” During the so-called Second Great Awakening, from about 1790 through 1830, camp meetings became one of the most popular ways to preach the revival message.
The first recorded camp meeting in Georgia took place in 1803 on Shoulderbone Creek in Hancock County. Methodist preacher Lorenzo Dow, who witnessed that meeting, was so impressed that he took “the concept back to England, where he duplicated it with much success.
Camp meetings were popular with rural Georgians. Not only a time for spiritual renewal, camp meetings were also gathering grounds where families and friends could reunite.
In the nineteenth century most Georgians were farmers who lived solitary, demanding lives. Camp meetings were festive affairs celebrated annually at a time when crops were laid by, thus providing a reprieve from the rigorous routine of farm life.
But by the late 19th century Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians around Georgia disdained the behaviors and emotionalism associated with the camp meeting. In the latter half of the century these denominations had become the most powerful in the state, and it was the emerging Holiness and Pentecostal groups who embraced the egalitarian camp meeting. While these groups maintained the tradition of holding extended revival meetings, they shed the excessive emotional attributes that marked early camp meetings. Today there are nearly 100 active Methodist, Holiness, and Pentecostal camp meeting sites in Georgia each year. Camp meetings are still used to reinvigorate churches through extended revival meetings.
Since the Great Awakening the purpose of the revivals has remained the same: to convert sinners to Christ. And while the camp meeting tradition has changed, the revivalist techniques of George Whitefield, Lorenzo Dow, and Charles Finney still thrive in today’s Evangelical Protestant churches.
- To view the Georgia Encyclopedia article online, go to http://georgiaencyclopedia.org\
Monumental structure over street is new Mystery
Check out this street scene, a very unusual street scene, and obviously not in Gwinnett County. The way it straddles the street makes you think of the Millennial Gate Museum in Atlanta. You eagle-eyed spotters, let us hear of your research. Send answers, of course, to elliott@brack.net, and include your hometown.
The last mystery photo, which we thought might be difficult to spot, didn’t fool a few people, who knew what the photo was immediately. Tamara Betteridge of Peachtree Corners, also a botanical artist, wrote: “Nope, not a tough challenge. That is the center of an Echinacea purpurea, a.k.a. the coneflower. This flower is a fantastic example of the Fibonacci sequence in spiral form.” The photo was sent in by Stewart Woodward of Lawrenceville, the nature photographer, using a technique called “Focus-Stacking.”
Then we heard from Allan Peel of San Antonio, Tex., who said: “I am no botanist, nor are my thumbs anywhere near green, so I am going far out on a limb today by even hazarding a guess as to what today’s mystery photo is all about. It appears to be an extreme close-up / macro view of a fairly common flower, known technically as an Echinacea Purpurea, or more commonly known to us laymen as a ‘Purple Coneflower.’ I have attached a photo of these flowers that would be more easily recognized by the readers.
“The Purple Coneflower is an herbaceous perennial that is native to much of the eastern, southeastern and mid-west United States and eastern Canada. These plants produce daisy-like flowers, yet thrive in full sun and heat, have very few pest problems, and can take less water than most other perennials. They are popular as a common summer garden flower as their nectar-rich centers will entice butterflies and honeybees to favor your garden over those of your neighbors. The individual flowers (florets) within the flower head are hermaphroditic in that they have both male and female organs in each flower, simplifying the pollination process.
“In addition to looking pretty, Echinacea Purpurea have a herbal medicinal value and have been used by Native Americans for centuries to treat many ailments, including wounds, burns, insect bites, toothaches, throat infections, pain, cough, stomach cramps, and snake bites. The plant is also important economically, to the pharmaceutical trade, and it is believed by some that all parts of the purple coneflower stimulate the immune system and can be used to treat virus infections such as the common cold and flu.”
Regular spotters who recognized the photo were George Graf, Palmyra, Va.; Susan McBrayer, Sugar Hill.
Patriotic observance
The Commemoration of the 288th birthday of President George Washington was attended recently by Gwinnett County organizations; Elisha Winn Society of the Children of the American Revolution (C.A.R.); Philadelphia Winn Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), and Button Gwinnett chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR). Georgia State SAR Militia Commander Bill Palmer (right) and Elisha Winn Society C.A.R. President/Button Gwinnett SAR member Noah Tindall (left) lead the Color Guard past the George Washington Monument in Gainesville. The award-winning Georgia State Society SAR Militia participated as the Color Guard for the Ceremonial Wreath Laying event. This celebration was held at the George Washington Monument in Gainesville.
Learn about the 1895 Cotton State Exposition tonight
Learn about the 1895 Cotton State Exposition in Atlanta, and what it meant for the metro area. This will be tonight (Tuesday) March 3 at 6:30 p.m. at the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center, 2020 Clean Water Drive in Buford. The speaker will be Dustin Klein, the archivist at the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History in Kennesaw, to speak about Atlanta’s 1895 Cotton Exposition and its similarities to the types of amusements available at Coney Island. He will also address the economic and industrial impact the Cotton Exposition had on Atlanta. Admission to the talk is free.
Climate Change: Join Professor Jamie Mitchem to learn about what the U.S. and the rest of the world is doing to combat climate change and the impact it has on geopolitics. It will take place on Sunday, March 8 at 3 p.m. at the Peachtree Corners Branch, 5570 Spalding Drive, Peachtree Corners. It is free and open to the public. This program is part of the Foreign Policy Association’s Great Decisions Series, which discusses America’s most critical issues each year. For more information, visit www.gwinnettpl.org or call 770-978-5154.
Southern Wings Bird Club meets Monday, March 9 at 7 p.m. at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center, in Lawrenceville. The speaker will be Linda May, an environmental outreach coordinator with the Department of Natural Resources.
Southern Values is the title of one of the current exhibits at the Hudgens Center for the Arts and Learning in Duluth. It will be on display through April 25. Curated by Mary Stanley, the show features work from three southern women artists: Shanequa Gay; Amanda Greene; and Joni Mabe. These artists pay homage to that which is Southern. All three have a special talent for finding beauty and value in the simple pleasures of daily life. The artists talk about this exhibit on March 28 from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m.
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