Employed CONFIDENTIAL INFORMANT: Not Believed

Homeless Czar Debi Mae Starnes bears false witness. She remembers statements that didn’t occur, but under oath she can’t remember the hotel that pays $10,000 of her $90,000 salary. She has spewed all over Atlanta that the nightly number of residents at Peachtree-Pine furnished by the Task Force is incorrect. Read the following e-mail exchange between Czar Starnes and Carlos Banda, Deputy Chief Atlanta Police, Commander of Criminal Investigations.

From: Starnes, Debi
Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 9:38 AM
To: Banda, Carlos
Re: PP

Starnes: What is the Peachtree Pine count????
Banda: 740 is the usual number 7 days a week. Supposedly the only time they go over that is when it is
real cold.
Starnes: I don’t believe that number….the CI is saying 740 SLEEP there each night???

If the TRUTH doesn’t please the Czar, she simply offers an alternative. She believes neither her Chief not her hired plant.

James Wilson Beaty, PhD
Jeremiah 22.16

Franklin’s Reward Or Punishment For Her Failure?

Upon leaving office as Atlanta’s mayor, Shirley Franklin will not become the Secretary of HUD, a job whose paycheck she has long craved. She will not be running for any state or federal office: governor, lieutenant governor, U. S. Congress or U. S. Senate. She will not be anybody’s ambassador to anywhere outside downtown Atlanta. I predict that Steve “the weasel” Visser’s predicted November 1 article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (hereafter called THE NARROW) will reannounce her new position as dictated by the downtown business community through Central Atlanta Progress. She will appoint herself along with two others as the chair of The Mayor’s Commission to End Homelessness. This new three-headed joke will replace the sitting chair, the able King and Spalding retiree, Horace Sibley. And I mean “sitting.” Horace sits at lunch after lunch after lunch slandering Peachtree-Pine and cajoling ministers and persons from places of “worship” to get homeless people out of sight. The principalities and powers (Colossians 2.15) CAP and ARC and HARP and RAP and SAP and TAP and FLAP put Shirley Franklin in office to finish a job. Her responsibility was and is to disappear the homeless population and to crush the Task Force for the Homeless, Inc. In order to disappear homeless people, the shelter at Peachtree-Pine had to go. This chore articulated by Central Atlanta Progress was not accomplished. Franklin failed. Franklin’s familiar, Czar Debi Mae Starnes was employed by Central Atlanta Progress through the books of United Way to finish the chore. Starnes’ only raison d’etre was and is the homeless population–to disappear it along with the place 700 men call home. Starnes has used every means possible to obey orders.

So diligent has Starnes been that she finds herself and many of her fellow conspirators on Team Goliath in the middle of a serious lawsuit. For five hours she answered questions as part of her deposition; she had to be reminded several times that she was under oath. She was also asked if she was on medication or if she was under the care of a physician. Debi Mae remembers things that never happened and forgets the HOTEL that helps CAP pay her salary to destroy a homeless shelter. A Fulton County Superior Court Judge ruled in a HEARING TO COMPEL that the brass at Central Atlantic Progress cannot continue to ignore their subpoena to be deposed. Since those worthies believe that they are above the law (or is it below it), they believe in their darkness that they are Carl Rove. As devious, perhaps, but not as slippery. A myriad of questions awaits Starnes in a second deposition any good day now. Czar Starnes and frank Franklin failed.

Now comes Franklin’s REWARD. The mighty Shirley Franklin, the dictionary picture of arrogance, is appointing herself, ordered by CAP, as chair of The Mayor’s Commission to End Homelessness. I must pause to address my dear and not-so-dear readers. I say what Adam said to Eve in the garden, “Stand back, Darlin’, let’s take a careful look at this thing.” What a picture! Franklin appoints herself as chair of her own commission. This all takes place BEFORE Mary Norwood takes office. My deep throats in the bowels of the Outhouse tell me that Mary “not too bright” Norwood and Shirley “frank” Franklin despise each other. The present mayor has questioned publicly the mental acumen of the future mayor. I call this friction the “Buckhead-Bankhead mix,” the “Cherokee Club-Cascade Suburb divide.” When the dust settles after Queen Mary’s coronation, we might ask Nat King Cole’s question, “What will my Mary say”?

Is this reward or punishment for Franklin? You be the judge. Ambassador to the homeless is a far cry from HUD Secretary. What hotel will pay her? Does she answer to Mayor Norwood? Will Franklin keep her $100,000 advisor, Debi Mae? Is dear Jack Harden really one-third of this three-headed debacle? How did that good man get sucked into that snakepit? And is the Cobb County contribution present to fight for homeless men in his neighborhood? How will Horace Sibley be rewarded for his monolithic accomplishments? Will he continue lunching with pastors and church folks slandering Peachtree-Pine, committing tortious interference? Will he spend any more hours in the art studio at the hated Pine watching his daughter paint portraits of men who live there? Horace told me once as he was taking notes at the shelter that Peachtree-Pine would always have a friend in him. WOW! He lisped this comment while sporting a smirk not unlike those on the faces of the damned somewhere deep in Dante’s INFERNO. Having a friend like “Hosby” brings hypertension. Please, let us sing before we pray, “What a friend we have in ‘Hosby.’”

When the hag had a baby years ago, I wrote a piece stating that Woody Bartlett’s and Debi Starnes’ stupid HAP (Homeless Action Plan) would never fly. Not only did it not fly, the ill-formed thing never left the womb, alive. I’m not a prophet; my daddy was. But I make predictions from time to time. I made several at HAP’s birth that have all come true. Every weapon formed against homeless people that I saw then is now outed. Enemies of the homeless population stalk the Pine; some come bringing blessings; some come paid to take pictures; some come to pay clients to talk; Debi Mae sends and pays plants to gather information; some, like Phil Hunter, work the Pine and leave to join Team Goliath as paid sabateurs. Others hover in the art gallery. CAP was always there in the shadows but never blinded by the light of day until an honest volunteer focused the light called TRUTH.

I will attempt a few additional predictions. Let me predict that the “new” commission will accomplish the same as the old: NOTHING! Let me also predict that whenever the Pine is not operating, downtown Atlanta wll crawl with people made homeless by these buffoons in leadership. Horace Sibley doesn’t have enough jails! The police don’t have enough billy clubs. CAP doesn’t have enough crematoriums. United Way doesn’t have enough Internment Camps. THE NARROW doesn’t have enough ink. Franklin and her familiar don’t have enough paddy wagons.

I miss on some predictions. I said my Cocks would defeat Georgia by 3. That didn’t happen. I was wrong. I have said for years that the churches, synagogues, mosques standing from the capitol to Lennox Mall would never give financial help to a politically hot item like the Task Force. Why? Two reasons. One, those “organizations” are the corporate community; they are the governmental scheme. Parliament at prayer, if you please. Two, they don’t give a damn for the poor. How COULD comfortable, at ease “worshippers,” be expected to rescue homeless neighbors from the clutches of the likes of Central Atlanta Progress. These places of weekly social gatherings could never be diverted from their agendas. They massage each other AND only their kind. Why, I saw just the other a sign in front of a church on Peachtree Street that read. “Everyone Welcome!” I nearly wrecked my truck.

I wish my prediction about the “spiritual” community were as wrong as I was about its Bulldogs. I pray that ONE, just ONE worshipping “church” would call to bring help from the heart, the wallet, their place of worship’s coffers. What a treat to have one pastor write to say, “Sorry to hear that Peachtree-Pine is spinning down the toilet.” Just ONE would do. I hear that some shepherds of some flocks join the community to disappear homeless people. Perhaps churches and cathedrals and synagogues and mosques are more than extensions of Central Atlanta Progress and City Hall. Perhaps Atlanta’s MEGA churches are more than centers of entertainment that gather to applaud their favorite rock star, towers of Baal in place to give immediate gratification. I pray that I am wrong. I really pray that David holds five smooth stones.

I predict that Mayor Norwood will follow hard in the footsteps of her two predecessors with the same morally corrupt, empty leadership of Bill Campbell and Shirley Franklin. I predict that the garbage that will be uncovered following the painful hangover of Franklin’s administration will make Campbell’s disaster look like a Buckhead bridge club party. We’ll see. No weapon formed against thee….

James Wilson Beaty, PhD

TASK FORCE WINS TODAY’S HEARING TO COMPEL!

The weather was cloudy and bleak. Zeus had spoken earlier with flashing lightning and rolling thunder. He’s not happy. However poor little David walked away from court smiling with five smooth stones still at his side. The sun was shining everywhere. In the Superior Court of Fulton County, at 10:30 AM, Judge Ural Glanville denied a motion filed by Atlanta attornys to dismiss the case, The Alanta Task Force for the Homeless v. The City of Atlanta (Mayor’s office). A motion had been filed for this hearing to COMPEL Central Atlanta Progress to produce Documents and to produce A.J. Robinson, President and Richard Orr, Senior Projects Manager, for deposition.

The Judge having said that he found the information in the argument on the motion to COMPEL “relevant” ordered the attorneys, Steve Hall for the Task Force and Steve Riddell for CAP to meet. This meetiing lasted about fifteen minutes. Riddell did not want the Judge to give the order. This means that CAP lawyers will produce all previously subpoenaed documents and all previously subpoenaed persons to be deposed. Those persons so far who have been subpoenaed are Robinson and Orr.

Comes Now…Again! David holds five smooth stones!

On Friday, September 11, 2009, attorneys for the Atlanta Task Force for The Homeless, Inc. filed a
Second Amended Complaint against the city, the Mayor’s office. The entire document contains 51 numbered paragraphs covering 24 pages. Paragraphs 6 through 43 spell out in detail the basis for the Nine Counts against the city listed in the remaining paragraphs of the Complaint. I want to share some of the information gleaned from 5 1/2 hours of deposition with Homeless Czarina Debi Mae Starnes. Incidentally, Mayor Franklin’s guru on homelessness is only halfway through her deposition. She has at least one more opportunity, under oath, to tell the truth.

The following numbered paragraphs are quoted verbatim from the Complaint which is a public document. I have chosen only 16 of the 43 paragraphs that form the basis for this Second Amended Complaint against the city. I have written the paragraph numbers as they appear in the Complaint:

6.
Debi Starnes, the Mayor’s Policy Advisor on Homelessness, has acknowledged under oath that the Mayor has no policy for those people who have exhausted the limits of the service that the City affiliated agencies will provide even with respect to those who are profoundly mentally ill and unable to get themselves out of Homelessness:
Q: My question Ms. Starnes, is: what is the Mayor’s policy for those people who cannot get services
anymore from Gateway?
A: The Mayor does not have a policy about every single person in this City. The Mayor’s policy has
been to develop a continuum of care where people can come in and out. So there are individuals
that won’t avail themselves to the myriad of options that are offered them. That is correct, we
don’t have a policy for every single person in the City. (Starnes Dep., p. 177) (Draft Version) The
only place for that person to go is the street or private providers like the Task Force. (Starnes
Dep., p. 189)

11.
Despite the tremendous good done by the Task Force and its staff, the Mayor’s office for the City, a local business organization called Central Atlanta Progress, Inc. (“CAP”) and others seek to force the Task Force to abandon its efforts at the shelter and close it down. This is being done despite the dramatic increase in homelessness caused by the current economic crisis and despite the City’s or CAP’s inability to provide a solution to Atlanta’s homeless problem that would eliminate the need for the Task Force.

14.
Having been unable to close the Task Force by legitimate means, the City acting through the Mayor’s office, and CAP have sought to force the closure of the Task Force through improper, illegal and unethical means.

16.
The primary actor on behalf of the City and CAP is Debi Starnes, the Mayor’s purported Policy Advisor on Homelessness.

17.
Contrary to what would be expected by her title, Ms. Starnes is not a City employee. She is paid primarily by Central Atlanta Progress, Inc. with funds that are funneled through United Way, apparently to disguise their origin:
Q: I’ve given you a copy of what we have marked as Exhibit 17. Is that your contract with the
United Way, dated February–well, you dated it, it looks like January 31, 2009 and United Way looks
like February 5th, 2009.
A: That’s the original contract….

Q: All right. The original contract amount was $45,000. How much of that $45,000 came from Central
Atlanta Progress?
A: I believe $40,000.

Q: And the rest came from the hotel you can’t remember?
A: Yes. (Starnes Dep., p. 41)

18.

The incredible access to and influence on the City that CAP has obtained by the payments it has made to Debi Starnes is reflected in an email chain attached hereto as exhibit “A”. The email reflects Richard Orr, Senior Projects Manager for CAP, and A. J. Robinson, the President of CAP discussing a report Mr. Orr received from Debi Starnes regarding the City Law Department’s attorney-client thoughts and strategy on ongoing litigation against the Task Force.

19.

Acting in concert with CAP, the City has sought to drive the Task Force out of business by: (1) refusing to issue certifications of compliance with the Consolidated Plan that are necessary for the Task Force to obtain funding from federal, state and other governmental agencies despite the Task Force’s compliance with the City’s Consolidated Plan; (2) delaying the provision of certifications of compliance with the City’s Consolidated Plan: (3) defaming the Task Force to other government agencies, media and the public; (4) threatening organizations that seek to work with the Task Force; and (5) defaming the Task Force to private donors.

20.
The city and its officers are aware that private donors are unlikely to give donations to the Task Force if there are negative statements made about the Task Force by City officials in the press. Indeed, Ms. Starnes has a Ph. D. in community and organizational psychology (Starnes Dep., p. 10) and knows exactly the effect that statements made to (and) in the media by purported City officials will have on the people who read and hear them.

21.
To accomplish their goal, Ms. Starnes has repeatedly and consistently made knowingly false statements about the Task Force to media outlets with the hope and intention that they are repeated to the public. For instance, Ms. Starnes has repeatedly stated that the Task Force is the worst homeless shelter in Atlanta and allows people to simply languish in its facility like a warehouse. Although she agrees that the best measure of success for a homeless shelter is the number of people it moved to permanent shelter, in her deposition she admitted that she made the statements about the Task Force despite the fact that she had no idea how many people the Task Forced moved from homelessness to permanent housing last year.

Q: How many people did Peachtree-Pine move into permanent shelter–permanent housing last year?
A: I have no idea.

Q: Give me an estimate.
A: I don’t know. (Starnes Dep., p.80)

22.
Further demonstration that Ms. Starnes’ statements were false and defamatory, the Director of Atlanta’s Office of Grants Management, the body that even Starnes states is responsible for receiving applications for funding, stated under oath that the Task Force’s applications showed it was the largest provider of emergency shelter services in the City, served the most difficult population (chronic homeless, mentally ill and substance abusers) and moved the most people from homelessness to permanent housing last year of any provider in the City.

24.
Ms. Starnes has also repeatedly stated that the Task Force holds people in homelessness because it does not provide services to help them escape homelessness: “The culture of that agency and its management of that building is not one that helps people escape homelessness. What’s going on in that building is abysmal and shouldn’t be accepted. The City should be ashamed for having allowed it to go on for so long.” (“Atlanta’s Largest Homeless Shelter Could Soon Be Shuttered,” CREATIVE LOAFING, 12/14/08)

25.
However, in deposition Ms. Starnes admitted that she did not know any of the programs offered by the Task Force:
Q: Okay. You don’t know what the list [of programs they offer to end homelessness] is. So you say
they don’t offer any programs that encourage people to get out, but you actually don’t know as we
sit here today, what programs they offer?
A: I can’t recite the list, no. (Starnes Dep., p. 218-219)

26.
Here again, further demonstrating that Ms. Starnes’ statements are knowingly false, the Director of the Office of Grants Management has acknowledged that the Task Force provides broad programs to end homelessness.

27.
…Indeed, the actions by Central Atlanta Progress are so improper that CAP has refused to comply with subpoenas requiring production of documents relevant to the Task Force. It has also refused to produce its President, A. J. Robinson, and one of its officers, Richard Orr, for depositions.

28.
Examples of CAP’s efforts to influence the media against the Task Force through “off the record” communications with the media are reflected in the emails between Richard Orr of CAP and Rhonda Cook of the Atlanta Journal Constitution (“AJC”) attached hereto as Exhibit “B”. Another example is the email communication between Mr. Orr and isama@bizjournals.com attached as Exhibit “C”.

29.
As an example of CAP and it’s leadership’s desire to use the media as a weapon against the Task Force is reflected in the emails between Richard Orr and A. J. Robinson, attached as Exhibit “C” where Mr. Orr responds to an AJC reporter’s willingness to meet with him so that he can supply “off the record” background information on the Task Force by advising the President of CAP: “FYI–Rhonda’s [Cook, reporter for the AJC] response below. WE”RE IN! (emphasis added)

30.
An example of CAP’s malicious intent is contained in an email between David Wardell and fincjm@langate.gsu.edu where Mr. Wardell reacts to a news report indicating that the City has turned off water to the Task Force’s shelter as follows: “Thanks, Great news.” Id.

The NINE COUNTS named and explained in this legal document, I choose to put in another reading. If you have waded through these 1500 words you deserve a rest. In fact, if I can get personal it’s time for me to pray. An earlier blog stated that whenever I hear the name, David Wardell, I always pray for him. As a fan of Charles Dickens, I study characters in and out of literature. David Wardell of CAP gave us that program for homeless people called “Wake Up, Atlanta.” That was the program for homeless people where Wardell, accompanied by a policeman, strolled early morning Atlanta and kicked the soles of the shoes of sleeping homeless people. I pray for David “Great news! Wake Up Atlanta” Wardell. As much as I wanted, I did not offer any comment or commentary on this Second Amended Complaint. I will in another blog entitled, “Team Goliath: Dickens Would Have Another Heyday.”

James Wilson Beaty, PhD
Jeremiah 22.16

Has Atlanta’s Leadership Gone Bat-Shit Mad?

Today, September 10, 2009, The Grady Coalition held a press conference on the steps of Fulton County’s Grady Hospital. Dr. Neil Shulman, other physicians, nurses and three kidney patients spoke passionately to 100 people. The press conference was called in order to beg the new privatized Board of Directors of the hospital to continue dialysis treatment for 90 patients. The Board announced several months ago its decision to close the Dialysis Clinic. No other hospital in Atlanta offers this treatment to indegent patients.

Anyone over 12 and awake in Atlanta knows that our City has not been “poor friendly” for the last dozen years. In fact, Atlanta’s leadership has labored to exterminate the homeless population since the Campbell Administration. The Atlanta Housing Authority headed by Renee Glover is yet another exterminator of housing for the under belly of Atlanta’s populace. AHA like housing authorities across America is no longer an organization that welcomes the poorest of the poor. And the “low lifes” that Glover’s regime has put on the streets are not considered worthy of the upgraded housing of the Atlanta Housing Authority. Thirteen housing communities under the umbrella of AHA have been leveled within the last 36 months.

But Grady Hospital! The last bastion of medical care for the poor! The latest victims of the War Against the Poor are not homeless people. It is understandable that Atlanta, the city too busy to hate, would do away with homeless people and the lower than low income renters. Those folks are unsightly. They are not pretty. There’s no place for them in Horace Sibley’s Tourists’ Triangle or Central Atlanta’s Sanitized Zone. The homeless folks from Peachtree-Pine smell bad. Ratchet Rob Hunter has seen to that as he has lived up to his name, Ratchet Rob “I’ll turn your water off” Hunter.

But not Grady! Reason dictates that a hospital would be the last place the corporate vultures would invade. WRONG. It is beyond imagination what has happened. Over the protest of a few Fulton Count Board of Commissioners, Grady Hospital has become a privatized business, answering only to a corporate board. The most recent result of privatization is the Board’s decision to shut down the Dialysis Clinic, presently serving 90 patients. The clinic according to the board is not economically feasible. The fiscally responsible board has counted the cost, a short fall of $4,000,000. To hell with the 90 people whose lives depent on this treatment. Besides 60 of them are from other countries, anyway. To be sure most of them won’t live long, anyway.

Tell that to the five-year-old boy holding a sign that reads: “Keep the Dialysis Clinic Open.” The little fellow’s 34 year-old mother will die if she misses one treatment. This five-year old will feel first hand the claw of privatization, the hammer of fiscal responsibility. Along side this lad stood eight adult patients whose lives will be snuffed out without dialysis treatment. The clinic is scheduled to close September 20. That’s TEN days from this writing.

What can be done? Public outcry may make a difference. Enough clamor just might bring about an injunction from, say, Fulton County Superior Court to enjoin Grady Hospital to continue dialysis treatment for all who need it.

Perhaps in a better world every board member who voted to close the clinic would be charged with attempted murder. And if one living soul dies from lack of treatment, let that charge be changed to MURDER.

Can you imagine that five-year-old boy having to hold that sign in a civilized country that has universal health care: Canada, Great Britain, Scotland, the Scandanavian countries and others.

I dedicate this “bat-shit mad” piece to the honorable U. S. Congressman Joseph “mind your manners now” Wilson of South Carolina. He’s the man who shouted, “You lie” during President Obama’s address to the nation on health care. Imagine if you dare an elected American official outraged that human beings, not to his liking, might receive health care insurance that would pay medical expenses. What have we become? Where will we stand at the day of reckoning? When will leadership ever take us back home again?

Is Atlanta the home of Dr. King? Who could ever tell it? Jeremiah 6.14 “They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious.” Should you read this blog I beg you to tell two people of the proposed Grady Massacre. Please shout from the housetops the outrage, one more atrocity committed by the city we love, the city we have lost. Tell you church. Tell your mosque. Tell your synagogue. Tell a judge. Pray for the 90 victims and their grieving families. Call the White House. Bombard the Outhouse. Ask every mayoral candidate what he or she would do to save the Dialysis Clinic.

James Wilson Beaty, PhD
Jeremiah 22.16

Bravo, Academics!

Charles G. Steffen, PhD, History Department of Georgia State organized and led, with much help from faithful Task Force supporters, the September 8 Press Conference where the following statement was read, having been signed by some 25 academics across greater Atlanta. A note follows the names which I quote: “Institutional affiliations are included solely for the purposes of identification and not as an endorsement by the institution.” Before I quote the statement and post the names, I remind you that this press conference was held without electricity. Thank God for sunlight! The City of Atlanta in its usual fashion of hospitality would not allow its electricity to be used. First WATER, now ELECTRICITY.

PUBLIC STATEMENT OF ACADEMIC COMMUNITY IN SUPPORT OF METRO ATLANTA TASK FORCE FOR THE HOMELESS’S LAWSUIT AGAINST THE CITY OF ATLANTA, SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

We, the undersigned members of the city’s academic community, wish to call attention to the recent lawsuit filed against the City of Atlanta by the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless. Scheduled for a hearing on September 21 at Fulton County Superior Court, this lawsuit accuses the City of a long-standing pattern of interference in the operation of the Task Force and its Peachtree-Pine facility. Equally important, it reveals how powerful economic and political interests have pursued an agenda of downtown development that sacrifices the well-being of working families, the poor, and homeless people. As concerned academics who believe that our City’s future should be shaped by Dr. King’s dream of a beloved community, we hope that this precedent-setting lawsuit will receive the widest possible publicity. We call on the local media to cover the case, and to do so in a fair and impartial manner. We urge our fellow citizens to denounce any and all attempts to undermine the important work being done by the the Task Force and to declare their support for a just and inclusive vision for our city.

Ian Almond, English Department, Georgia State University
Frank S. Alexander, School of Law, Emory University
James Wilson Beaty, Beulah Heights University, retired
Christine Jacobsen Carter, History Department, Georgia State University
Kathleen N. Cleaver, School of Law, Emory University
Ian C. Fletcher, History Department, Georgia State University
Monica H. Halka, Honors Program, Georgia Institute of Technology
Charles E. Jones, Department of African American Studies, Georgia State University
Lindsay Jones, School of Law, Emory University
Larry Keating, City and Regional Planning, Georgia Institute of Technology
Matthew Lasner, History Department, Georgia State University
Vincent Lloyd, Department of Religious Studies, Georgia State University
Gregory H. Nobles, School of History, Technology, and Society, Georgia Institute of Technology
Deirdre Oakley, Sociology Department, Georgia State University
Joe Perry, History Department, Georgia State University
Jared Poley, History Department, Georgia State University
Walter Reed, English Department, Emory University
Mary Rolinson, History Department, Georgia State University
Erin E. Ruel, Sociology Department, Georgia State University
Natsu T. Saito, College of Law, Georgia State University
Christine Skwiott, History Department, Georgia State University
Charles G. Steffen, History Department, Georgia State University
Akinyele K. Umoja, Department of African American Studies, Georgia State University
Isaac A Weiner, Department of Religious Studies, Georgia State University
Larry Youngs, History Department, Georgia State University

Shakespeare On Social Injustices

Outside the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, I know of no statement exposing social injustices more powerful than Shakespeare’s Sonnet 66. He gave the world 154 sonnets, give or take a few, that some scholars believe might have been written by somebody else. Like the 150 Psalms of David, a few may have been set down by a second writer. I don’t care. For our purposes authorship is secondary; content is primary.

Sonnet 66 is unique for several reasons. First, ten of its lines begin with the coordinate conjunction, “And.” Ten lines beginning with the same word displays a regularity not to be found elsewhere in the remaining sonnets. I have not seen this regularity anywhere else in good writing. Shakespeare has a reason for his unvarying rhythm. He is creating a regularity that matches the monotony of the world’s injustice. And that monotony has its own dismal pattern of relentless repetition. A second unique feature of Sonnet 66 is its abandoning the three quatrains and rhyming couplet. Each of the “stanzas” forms a mini-poem while the couplet serves as a commentary on the fourteen lines. Not Sonnet 66.

For our accessibility and enjoyment I want to put the 14-line poem in front of us:

Sonnet 66
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry:
As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,
And purist faith unhappily forsworn,
And guilded honor shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,
And simple truth miscalled simplicity,
And captain good attending captain ill.
Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that to die I leave my love alone.

Line 1 tells that the poet cries for death because he is exhausted by the injustices he’s about to list. Lines 13 and 14 which close the sonnet repeat that his devastated state remains, and his desire to be gone from “these” remains. However, his only grip on constancy is his faithfully loving those around him. He cannot leave them alone.

A litany of evil smudges the page from line 2 through line 12. A parade of victims and victimizers file before the eyes of the narrator. The first seven lines form a lament while the last five lines name the victims and their victimizers. Each of the five lines is an J’accuse.

Throughout the sonnet the single line does what the four-line quatrain usually does. It makes a complete statement. For instance the second line notes that a worthwhile person is born to be a beggar while line 3 finds a worthless nothing, unjustly raised up and dressed in jollity, in a merry mood. Line 3 reminds me of the fop, prominent in Eighteenth Century English literature. The fop is the vain, overdressed dandy unaware that he hopes to be avoided by everyone in every room that he enters. “Oh no, look who just arrived.” He’s the one who has just been promoted over three others more qualified than he. Line two brings to mind Bobby Kennedy’s proclaiming that every baby born of woman in any one of the United States of America has an engagement ring on its tiny finger. And that ring is a promise of citizenship that carries with it the full protection of the Constitution. That promise is the guarantee as an American to the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Shakespeare’s second line “As to behold desert a beggar born” deplores that in his world that right had not been granted.

Lines 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 move from lament to J’accuse. Each of these lines accuses a perpetrator. And each of these lines exposes a mover and a shaker acting CUI BONO, for whose benefit? for what use? of what good? Each victimizer has made a victim for fear of being removed, replaced. Shakespeare, the master of words hates most miscalling, misnaming. Secondly, he hates the pretense of learning, the novice pretending to be an expert. Look with me if we dare at the five victimizers.

Line 8 reads, “And strength by limping sway disabled.” “Limping sway” is defective authority; any citizen in Atlanta ever heard of “defective authority”? I remember some years ago the Task Force leadership was at City Hall pleading for something. We were actually casting our pearls before swine. Robert S. Cramer, Jr., Chair of the Board, said to Mayor Bill Campbell, “Mr. Mayor, we own a huge building on Peachtree Street; we believe we have rights.” Campbell’s response in front of 12 people was, “Bob, you have rights; we have enforcement.” In 1995 the Task Force had the strength to apply for and to obtain $12.4 million that was dispersed among shelters throughout the greater Atlanta area. Campbell held a copy of the check for the media lying that the city had applied for and had gotten the $12.4 million. A shelter provider in my hearing said last month that the Task Force’s dispersement of that money was the only time that the accounting was fair. The Task Force since 1995 has been “disabled” constantly, unremittingly since 1995. Debbie Starnes came alive following the Super NOFA federal grant in 1995; the present Czar was on City Council. She saw then that federal bucks were to be had. The calculating Starnes as member of the City Council had her work cut out for her. Starnes, like Bruce Gunter, that safe point of light, is always close to the money. The “sway” in Shakespeare’s sonnet is that unsteady authority that pulverizes threatening strength. J’accuse Debi Starnes; J’accuse defective authority mirrored in the likes of Bill Campbell. J’accuse Shirley Franklin. J’accuse them in the names of 600 men at the Pine who will soon be on the streets of Atlanta fulfilling the wishes of defective authority.

Line 9 reads: “And art made tongue-tied by authority.” The City of Atlanta has never, not one time, not now, not ever addressed the homeless population. Pages of discovery (evidence) showing that Central Atlanta Progress, the City of Atlanta and the sad Atlanta Journal-Constitution have for years plotted to overthrow Anita Beaty and the shelter at Peachtree-Pine. I’m under lock and key not to BLOG what I know and who I know e-mailed whom in order to block funding, coaching reporters, asking about lenders, speaking with mega-million bucks donars, etc., etc. In a few days when all the court stuff is on record, I can post and, honey, I will. But for now, “Art” for Shakespeare meant articulation, oration, expression and truth telling. The Atlanta Journal Constitution has lied incessantly. It is Debi Starnes’ newsletter slandering the Task Force. Reporters for the local newspaper are coached by the brass at Central Atlanta Progress on which “spin” to take. And all the while those of us who know the truth are “tongue-tied” without the resources to pay the water bills because the creditor to whom we owe the water bill has illegally (tortious interference) stopped our funding. J’accuse Central Atlanta Progress. J’accuse Deborah “the whole truth” Cook. J’accuse Debi Starnes. J’accuse David “Great News” “Wake up Atlanta” Wardell. And I accuse these leaders of our city in the names of the hundreds of homeless men whose hands I shake all the time.

Line 10 reads, “And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill.” Remember Shakespeare despised almost as much as lying with the language, miscalling with the inaccurate words. Some years ago I was an honorable member of the Atlanta Kiwanis Club. I loved my time there, and those good folks let me speak once, with some trepidation I might add, theirs and mine. Before I left (the Task Force nor I could pay the dues), Horace Sibley, Esquire, was the quest speaker. He was invited to speak because he was then (and now I think) the Chair of Mayor Franklin’s newly appointed Commission on Homelessness. Among other things this retired attorney said that the commission which he chaired would end homelessness in Atlanta in ten years. Sibley mosied around Peachtree-Pine for ten months taking notes while his lovely daughter painted dozens of homeless people in our little art studio. “And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill” portrays Horace Sibley talking about ending homelessness. I’m sure he’s a brilliant lawyer, but he knows as much about ending homelessness as a rabbit knows about teaching Sunday School. J’accuse Hosby in the names of the 600 men who languish tonight at the Pine wondering where Team Goliath will stab us next,

Line 11 reads: “And simple truth miscalled simplicity.” The first century Christians were first called Chrestians, or simpletons. Brilliant Atlanta attorneys will soon show the Superior Court of Fulton County that the Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, Inc. has methodically, regularly and unremittingly been depicted by the local paper, agents of city hall and the wise Central Atlanta Progress to be at best simpletons who harm rather than help homeless people. Misnaming! Why this lie? Let me count the ways. One answer is enough! LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION! Bruce “safe point of light” Gunter sidled up to Anita Beaty years ago in order to deliver the building to developers. He couldn’t deliver; he’s been an enemy ever since. No money; no Bruce. The Task Force has told the truth about homeless people since its inception. Truth speaking to power rarely wins. J’accuse Debi Starnes for telling people not to buy the Pine because it would soon be foreclosed. J’accuse the local paper for consistently reporting lies about Peachtree-Pine from lice infestation to human squalor. J’accuse them in the names of the twenty men thriving in transition at the Pine.

Line 12 reads: “And Captain Good attending Captive Ill.” When Bob Cramer graciously asked Mayor Campbell for relief, we all went there trusting that ILL would help. After Andy Young and Maynard Jackson, the Task Force has approached city hall only with hat in hand. In fact, the only times we’ve seen Shirley Franklin was when she drove by the Peachtree-Pine facility, slowly, taking notes. I think Hosby did that for her (that’s Horace Sibley). One of our staff members named him “Hosby” because we love him so much. He’s our friend. And he bats cleanup on Team Goliath.

The Pretrial hearing in the Superior Court of Fulton County is set for September 21, 2009. I can’t tell you yet what I know. I yearn to talk about subpoenas and motions and possible sanctions and 4000 pages of stuff and city attorneys and other Keystone Cops stuff like that. I asked a knowledgeable person how in blazes could the city have 4000 pages that mentioned the poor little David, the ruined Task Force. One smarter than I asked me, “How long did you say Debi Starnes has been running her mouth?” Speaking of “dismal pattern of relentless repetition.” Incidentally those 4000 pages are now in the hands of Task Force lawyers, along with subpoenaed e-mails from Central Atlanta Progress. I’m permitted to write that. As the Reverend Joseph Lowry has said, “And the beat goes on.” Stay tuned my little ones. The fat lady has not yet begun to sing. Watch for “Does A Worm Squirm?”

James Wilson Beaty, PhD
Jeremiah 22.16

Exposing the Heart

The Franklin/Starnes team is committed to the disappearing of the homeless population from Atlanta. All the members of that team from Hosby to memo signer Bonnie Ware declare that they are the “molders of human fate and the givers of all good.” (Daniel Berrigan) They are not what they say they are, and they are not what they appear to be. When pressed, like the chameleon these lizards change their color. The truth brings out their true colors.

The comment quoted in full below was sent to my blog. I post it because it so perfectly captures the “heart” and posture of the present City of Atlanta government. I pray that everyone reads it and digests it. I thank Riptide for so clearly articulating the heartbeat of city hall. I’ve asked that this comment be put into a pamphlet for distribution everywhere as my feeble blog these days has only a few hundred readers. The Goliath team applause will be thunderous when they behold their reflexion in Riptide’s mirror. Again, let me thank Riptide for showing his heart. The writing is adequate in spots, needing grammatical polish here and there. Like President Clinton, Riptide is not sure what is is. Enjoy this “liberal guilt” basher.

“It is ridiculous how your organization continues to subsidize the lives of able-bodied male drug addicts and alcoholics who frankly are too lazy to hold a real job. Having conversed with many of the people you claim to help, its (sic) apparent that their lives consist of trying to hustle up a few dollars each day so they can support habits and then returning to your shelter for a little bit of sleep so they can do it all over again the next day. This is not real poverty like in the third world-its (sic) self-inflicted misery that no amount of money will cure.

If you really cared about the lives of your residents, you would mandate drug and alcohol testing as a condition of their stay. Otherwise you are just assuaging your feelings of liberal guilt, at the expense of this great city and those you pretend to want to help.

I’ll bet you don’t have the guts to post this on your blog.”

The Franklin/Starnes Newsletter Silent On The Dynamite Explosion

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has served for years as the newsletter supporting the Shirley Franklin/Czar Debi Starnes team committed to disappearing homeless people from Atlanta. The team effort, of course, includes the elimination of the largest and most “disgusting” shelter in the Southeast, the Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, Inc.
The June 24 edition of Atlanta’s only “daily” carried the slanted, half-truth article “Water on at Shelter.” This is an example of the one-sided coverage always given the Task Force. The article states accurately that a “Fulton County judge on Tuesday ordered the restoration of water service to the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless shelter.” The article stated further that the Task Force must pay $15,000 by next Tuesday. The above is true. But it is only a smidgen of what was ordered in that Superior Court, Judge Ural Glanville, presiding. I can’t wait to tell you. I can’t wait to tell my children. I can’t wait to tell my grandchildren. I can’t wait to tell the souls who collect my garbage. They work for these phonies.

I will not write a word of the proceedings in that courtroom until our attorneys approve my songs. I will tell you that legal terms like “discover” and “subpoena” and ” “depositions” filled the air. I will tell you that the judge said among other things to the city attorneys that this hearing is about far more than unpaid water bills. I will tell you that four City of Atlanta attorneys looked as though they had fouled their small clothes. I will tell you that Czar Debi Starnes stared at her cell phone as though she wanted to eat it. I will tell you that the Commissioner of Water, Rob Hunter, chief of the Department of Water Mismanagement with his ever-present purple head, was having some difficulty not swallowing his tongue. I will tell you that memo-signing Bonnie Ware stared at the cranium of Czar Starnes as if to say, “Hold me, mama!” The Goliath team staggared.

You know, I know City Hall always wins, momentarily. Colossians 2.15 tells me so. But I have the strangest sense that these lying pretenders in the days ahead will know, at least, that they have been in the ring.

The HAG Delivers Again

Ten years ago I wrote a satire, “The HAG Had A Baby.” HAG is an acronym for Homeless Action Group.  That piece announced the birth of yet another city blunder “to end homelessness” called HAP, the Homeless Action Plan.   The City of Atlanta’s feigned “helps” for homeless people are legion.  The sad attempts to create acronyms, to my knowledge, ended mercifully after three tries.  First came the HAG, then her short-lived son, the HAP and finally the ROC, the Resource Opportunity Center.  The third effort listed here was a multimillion dollar facility complete with bars on windows and “no loitering/police take note” signs all around.  The ROC was a brick, a million dollar flop.  The acronyms ended but their smoke and mirror efforts pretending to help the homeless continued ad nauseam.  No one has discovered a City of Atlanta sponsored plan or program that has ever touched Atlanta’s homeless population.  Why can’t city leaders who hosted a World Series, a Super Bowl and a Summer Olympics come up with a solution to help the homeless population?  Why not?  They don’t want to help the homeless population!  That has never been their plan; that will never be their plan.  The power brokers who control the governments, city, county and state want the homeless population to disappear. The presence of tattered African-American men on Peachtree Street is anathema to the movers and shakers who hold Mayor Franklin, Atlanta City Council and Fulton County Commission in the palms of their crafty hands.  Helping the homeless population keeps unwanted present, visible, in sight.  And just as sickening to the principalities and powers downtown is the stench of the Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless located at the corner of hallowed Peachtree and Pine.  That’s the rub. The truth is that the status quo gang who rules downtown is committed to disappearing homeless people and along with this refuse the disobedient Task Force for the Homeless, Inc. which supports these ruined outcasts 24-7.

The ROC languished for several years on life-support systems.  A street-wise homeless man once told me he would not go near the ROC as it was nothing more than a ticket to hanging Judge Bill Riley’s Community Court. “Besides,” my friend asked me, “don’t those city hall folks know that the ROC is another name for Alcatraz?”  The HAP, on the other hand, was either stillborn or died soon after birth, a misnamed weakling who never left the hospital.  Even consummate politician, State Representative Nan Orrock, said that the HAP was not a plan at all, just another list of projects.   

HAP’s wicked mother, the HAG, however, unlike her dead child, lives, just barely, but she lives, still.  The HAG breathes; she meets; she walks; she meets; she talks; she meets; she plans; she meets; she aims; she meets; then she attacks.  Debi Starnes, the self-named Czarina of homelessness, presides monthly over a dozen or so hangers-on.  (Ms. Starnes actually calls herself the Czar of homelessness.  Perhaps she prefers the masculine form of the noun; mayhap she doesn’t know the difference.)  The HAG meets within the protective confines of the affluent North Avenue Presbyterian Church.  Whenever the HAG targets a disobedient agency, such as the Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, Starnes and her cabal get busy. They dash off a diatribe that appears in the HAG’s Newsletter, the Atlanta Journal Constitution.  Sometimes when the Czarina gets desperate, she calls for heavy artillery from a weekly thing named, Creative Loafing.   The Task Force’s lawyers currently hold letters signed by Mayor Franklin that reek of Starnes’ rhetoric.

 

The Mayor’s strategist sometimes gets personal.  When ridicule heaped on the Task Force is not enough, the Czarina calls in mega forces to attack the organization’s directors and board members and financial supporters.  Recently heavy hitters were quoted as backup to Starnes’ inveterate, decade-long venom aimed at Anita Beaty, the executive director of the hated Task Force for the Homeless.  Bill Bolling, Bruce Gunter and other safe points of light joined Starnes with derogatory comments for local publications.  Those three worthies for years have had personal vendettas against disobedient Anita Beaty.  A not too prominent Atlanta banker some years ago referred to Anita Beaty as “That woman.”  Perhaps he didn’t want to dirty his mouth.  Able Mable Thomas told me that the city’s biggest problem with Anita Beaty is that she will not obey.  Bolling, Gunter and Starnes could vouch that Anita Beaty, the real deal, did not obey them, does not obey them, and will not obey them. 

Ten plus years ago I closed “The Hag Had A Baby” with a paragraph that has proved to be chillingly prophetic.  “Unfortunately, the birth of HAP, son of the HAG, does not indicate a lessening of our fiend’s fury.  Venom that perpetuates itself with the lie lives forever.  Just how far HAP, son of the HAG, will fall from the tree of the mother who bore him, no one can tell.  As an infant HAP is the spitting image of his ugly mother.  But talk around Central Atlanta Progress, City Hall, newsletter Atlanta Journal Constitution and other bastions of the truth have it that the HAG is pregnant again.  Technology says it’s a girl and her name is SAP, honoring all who follow her brother, HAP, son of the HAG.”

Of course, when I wrote “The HAG Had A Baby” I penned its conclusion tongue in cheek.  Only God knows the evil schemes that will bubble to the top of the city’s caldrons as Starnes has worked non-stop to disappear the homeless population and to destroy the leading agency in the state that serves the homeless population.  SAP is the City’s latest pretense that masquerades as a friend of homeless people.  This misnamed comedy of tricks is none other than The Mayor’s Commission to End Homelessness.  The HAG has delivered again.  The HAG was pregnant for so long carrying the SAP that some of us feared the monster would come forth a teenager.  Our deep throats in the bowels of the Outhouse tell us that this latest monster is not a teen at all, just another anemic issue, now seven years old but cannot find its way out of City Hall on fire-drill day. 

The Franklin/Starnes Commission has a fairy tale history that warrants telling.  When Advisor/Czarina Starnes completed the work on establishing this new commission, the Mayor decided to throw a City Hall bash to end all bashes.  The occasion was the announcement that the City of Atlanta once again was going to end homelessness.  How many times have our hearts been gladdened with the news that the city too busy to hate is once again going to end homelessness?  The gathering was so august that the Mayor ordered a fresh bucket of orange dye and a spare plastic flower or two.  She pulled all the stops.  Everybody was invited and everybody came: members of Atlanta City Council, some of the Mayor’s buddies from Fulton County Commission (Boxill not Darnell), Central Atlanta Progress, Atlanta Regional Commission, Chamber of Commerce, the Tri-Jurisdictional Continuum of Care, United Way and other helpers of the poor too numerous to name.  Note that The United Way is the cover for the City’s shenanigans.  The Chief of Police and Majors from all precincts were present and dressed out.  Meter maids and members of the Ambassadors along with a few choice police people who guard Peachtree-Pine were present and counted.  And last but not least the city chaplain was there to bless the feast and to sanctify the occasion.  This gala had been dedicated to the Mayor’s advisor, her mentor, her minion, her darling, her familiar, the honorable Debi Starnes.

Before relating the events of that glad evening in Atlanta, an aside is necessary.  A party hundreds of years ago is captured in the oldest of the four Gospels, Mark 6.14-27.  This devastating passage relates the death of that famous preacher known as John the Baptist.  The occasion is a birthday party for King Herod Antipas.  Herod had married Herodias, wife of his brother.  John the Baptist had had occasion to say to the King, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife” (Mark 6.18).  Herod was not too ruffled by John’s words because Herod was fascinated by this maverick, and the King liked to listen to him.  (Richard Nixon was good buddies with Billy Graham and liked to listen to him).  But wife Herodias was livid with the preacher.  Her fury exceeded reason, so the King imprisoned John for the good man’s protection.  Herod, like Shirley Franklin can throw a party, and guests came from far and wide; after all it was the King’s birthday.   Mark writes that some of those in attendance were his high officials, military commanders and leading citizens of Galilee.

Herodias’ daughter, Salome, danced and greatly pleased the King and his dinner guests.  In fact the King was so tickled that he said to Salome, “Ask me for anything you want, and I’ll give it to you.”  Herod, probably a little tipsy by now, reinforces his promise with an oath, “Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom.”  Having consulted with her mother, Salome, said to King Herod, “I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter.”

Although Herod was made sad by this request, he would not refuse Salome because of his oath and because of his dinner guests.  Before the party ended the head of John the Baptist was presented to Herodias’ daughter.

Herod’s party centuries ago and Shirley Franklin’s party seven years ago have stunning similarities.  Franklin’s party was attended by all the politicos, and not unlike Herod, if Franklin invites, the invited show.  Food and drink aplenty satisfied every person.  First class entertainment gladdened the crowd.  As the party waned near the witching hour, up swayed the guest of honor.  She took the microphone unannounced, unaccompanied, unabashed; and belted Lee Greenwood’s country hit, “God Bless the USA.”  When she wailed, “I’m proud to be an American, At least I know I’m free” the crowd rose to its feet, and a few of the precinct Majors began swaying and chanting.  The ecstatic crowd. as one, joined the chant: “Debi does Atlanta; Debi Does Atlanta; Debi Does Atlanta; Debi Does Atlanta; Debi Does Atlanta.”  Seeing the frenzied crowd the Mayor, orange dye and plastic camellia, takes the microphone from her favorite and screeches, “Czarina Starnes, you are the greatest.  Ask me what you want, and I’ll give it to you.”  The “Czar” took the mike without hesitation and with a hellish, fiendish, maniacal smirk screamed, “Let me bring you the head of the head of the Task Force for the Homeless.”  The place went ballistic.  Whistles, catcalls, squeals led a ten minute demonstration. Of all the days and years and acts of city hall corruption, this had to be its finest hour. One drunk precinct Major was heard to drool, “Not even Bill Campbell could match this.”

 

As the cheering died, the Mayor reiterated, “’Debi Does Atlanta,’ and you got it girl.  You go get ‘That woman.’”  The precinct Major’s chant changed in content but not in fervor.  Voices of drunk police officers could be heard into the night, “That woman,” “That woman,” “That woman,” “That woman,” “That woman,” “That woman.”  The party ended; the cheers subsided; the inebriated sobered.  But the vigor and stamina and hatred of the homeless population only increased. Add to that image, “That woman” and the Czarina has the perfect target, the perfect storm.  Starnes went to work.  Moment by moment, day by day, year by year with uncanny, demonic devotion; she placed in her crosshairs the homeless population and the Task Force for the Homeless.  She has been able to stop contracts between the Task Force and the City of Atlanta, the State of Georgia as well as the Federal Government.  And she has done it all in the name of helping homeless people. 

It is imperative to take note, note bene, that Starnes and her ilk now define the homeless.  Therefore the officially designated by City Hall homeless comprise a tiny slice of the homeless population.  It is imperative for thinking people to scrutinize the ploy of parading charlatans like Debi Starnes.  She and her crowd identify a handful of homeless people and do something with them; often we do not know what they do.  At the same time the overall homeless population and any who serve it are designated for annihilation by definition.  It’s no wonder that they tell the world, “We are ending homelessness.” 

Recently, a prominent professor in a prominent local university asked me in all seriousness, “Why in the world does the spiritual community of Atlanta give Debi Starnes so much power?  She has murdered the Task Force.”  I replied, “Did you say ‘spiritual community’?  Who do you mean?”  He said, “I mean the churches, mega churches, mosques and synagogues.  There’s enough gold in those places of worship just on Peachtree to fund the Task Force five times over.”  Smiling, I said, “You are right; you are right.”  I tried to be kind as I reminded my literate friend of Canto III of Dante’s Inferno.  That canto houses the folks who were not bad enough to get into hell.  They did nothing.  They never entered the fray.  They remained safe.  They are for eternity the trimmers, always on the sideline, never in the game, never taking a stand, never doing anything.