If you’re interested in the music scene and music industry in Savannah, I’d recommend checking out my Sunday City Talk column in the Savannah Morning News: House committee hears about Savannah’s music industry The 5-person state legislative committee is holding…
Category: Politics
Is Nate Silver’s departure an indictment of the journalistic culture at the NYT?
Nate Silver — statistician and analyst whose blog FiveThirtyEight was most recently hosted by the New York Times — has moved to ESPN: Silver, who rose to fame with his award-winning website, FiveThirtyEight.com, also will appear on ESPN and its…
A closer look at population loss in Detroit
From the Washington Post’s Wonkblog, Detroit just filed for bankruptcy. Here’s how it got there.: — Since 2000, Detroit’s population has declined 26 percent. There are now just 706,000 people in the city, way down from 1.85 million during its…
Time for Savannah and Chatham County to move forward with Unified Zoning Ordinance
Want to open a “trampoline center”? Think your property should be zoned “agricultural tourist”? Then we have the obsolete zoning just for you. We’re constantly fighting about zoning here in Savannah, most recently in a controversy involving new townhouse apartments…
US Census: “Blacks Voted at a Higher Rate than Whites in 2012 Election — A First”
Black turnout in 1996 was only 53.0 percent. It jumped 3.8 points in 2000, 3.2 points in 2004, 4.7 points in 2008, and another 1.5 points in 2012. So the rate was increasing pretty dramatically even before Obama appeared on the ballot in 2008.
Just $1.28 million in Obama budget for Savannah port dredging
I haven’t been posting much to the statewide political blog Peach Pundit over the last few weeks. But I have a new post up right now: Despite significant infrastructure spending in Obama’s proposed budget, only a pittance for Savannah port…
SMN details education sales tax spending and results of shortfall
Anyone who’s interested in a detailed analysis of public spending of tax dollars should read ESPLOST: Promises and perceptions in Savannah-Chatham County schools by Jenel Few in today’s Savannah Morning News. The 1 percent sales tax approved by voters in…
A few thoughts on Stephanie Cutter becoming Savannah’s permanent city manager
I hope that those who thought that the widespread opposition to Small-Toney was due only to racism and/or sexism are paying close attention to the support that Cutter has won in recent months.
T-SPLOST and the nonexistent Plan B for transportation in Georgia
I really don’t see how we get through this political dysfunction until a much larger percentage of voters understands that there simply isn’t money to address the very real transportation needs that we face.
City brings Savannah Development and Renewal Authority back after controversies
A word of caution, however. While I know and respect about half the 15 board members selected so far, it seems odd that the entire list, I believe, is made up of men. On its face, that seems like a rather serious issue.
Washington Post details homicide and suicide gun deaths by state
OK, this might not be the cheeriest thing to read on a Sunday morning, but The Washington Post has some fascinating numbers and an excellent interactive graphic here: Gun suicide and homicide: statistics shaped by race. Among blacks, Georgia has…
A long look at possible problems with Gallup’s presidential polling model
In the days leading up to and after the November election, I made a number of posts about Gallup’s obviously flawed presidential polling. All of those posts argued in some way that the esteemed polling firm’s likely voter modeling was…
The best political blogs in Georgia: Peach Pundit and Georgia Tip Sheet
I started contributing to Peach Pundit in summer 2012. Given my relatively slow pace of posting in recent weeks, I’m a bit surprised to see that I’ve made about 70 posts since joining the team of 14 contributors, most of…
Jack Kingston looks even more likely to run for Georgia Senate seat
No big surprise here, but over at Peach Pundit Buzz Brockway has posted the following tweet and said that a second source has confirmed the information: Congressman @jackkingston was at the Forsyth County GOP meeting this morning and acknowledgedhe will…