Reflection of All Things Pure

I've written about mountain climbers here before, but I don't believe I've mentioned Lionel Terray, a French climber who made many first ascents. In 1947, Terray made the second ascent of the North Face of the Eiger, and he was a member of a 1950 expedition on Annapurna, the highest peak summitted at the time and the first 8000-meter peak ever climbed. Terray himself did not reach the summit of Annapurna, but helped aid the two summiteers down from the mountain. In 1952, he was the first to climb Mount Fitz Roy in Patagonia, and in 1955, was the first to summit Makalu in the Himalayas, the fifth highest mountain in the world. In 1964, he was the first to ascend Mount Huntington in the Alaska Range. Terray died in a rock-climbing accident in the Vercors, south of Grenoble, on this date in 1965.  Impermanence is swift.

On that same day in 1965 that Terray fell to his death, Sunita Williams was born in Euclid, Ohio.  She graduated from Needham High School in Massachusetts, received a Bachelor degree in physical science from the United States Naval Academy, and a Master degree in engineering management from Florida Institute of Technology.  In June 1998, Williams was selected by NASA for the astronaut program.  She was a member of Expeditions 14 and 15 on the International Space Station, and served as a flight engineer on Expedition 32 and then commander of Expedition 33. She held the records for most spacewalks by a woman (seven) and most spacewalk time for a woman (50 hours, 40 minutes).  Today, the 56th anniversary of Terray's death, is Williams' 56th birthday.

This is the day to be mindful of our universal self, for with it, reflection of all things is pure.

We're well into hurricane season now and I'm watching the horizon for any new storms.  The remnants of Tropical Storm Odetta are a couple hundred miles south of Newfoundland and not likely to be heard from again.   One of the two systems that had been forming in the Atlantic is now a tropical storm and has been named "Peter."  Tropical Storm Peter is expected to pass north of the Lesser Antilles later this week and then hook north toward Bermuda.  The other storm, a tropical depression for now referred to only as "Seventeen," is likely to become a tropical storm but seems to be heading from the east coast of Africa toward the northern mid-Atlantic.  If it stays on that trajectory, it shouldn't make landfall on North America.  As it's hurricane season, a fourth system is brewing just off the coast of Guinea-Bissau and currently has less than a 40% chance of becoming a hurricane.

I'm also keeping an eye on the Buckhead secession movement.  I got a flyer in the mail yesterday from the Buckhead City Committee, one whole page of which was full of scary headlines and statistics about crime in Buckhead. Another page claimed that a Buckhead City would have four times the number of cops of the street.  The flyer touts a recent "Feasibility Study" commissioned by the Committee that claims that not only would a Buckhead City be safer and fiscally viable, but wouldn't have any negative impact on the City of Atlanta.  

An independent analysis performed by KB Advisory Group concluded that if Buckhead were to secede from the City of Atlanta, both entities, as well as Atlanta Public School system, would stand to lose financially, economically, and socially.  Specifically, the analysis found  that the City of Atlanta would lose approximately $252 million in revenue from the Buckhead area derived mainly from property taxes, sales taxes, lodging taxes, and business license fees. 

The Buckhead City Committee claims the secession of Buckhead would leave Atlanta with the responsibility of 20% fewer residents, and that any loss in revenue would "be offset by the reduction of responsibility for police, roads, and parks." However, the financial analysis by KB Advisory Group found that despite the cost savings, the City of Atlanta would suffer net fiscal losses ranging from $80 million to $116 million annually.  In addition, issues regarding service of current debt and future debt, economic development disunity, and reduced community services are all likely to be significant difficulties for both the City of Atlanta and the Buckhead area if secession were to move forward. 

I'm hearing more and more people questioning the feasibility of the proposed separate city, but that may be due simply to the left-leaning feedback loop of my media bubble.  Others may be hearing the opposite.  I'm still looking for corroborating data on line (without luck so far), but the local news broadcast on Atlanta's CBS affiliate, WSB, this afternoon reported that a recent poll showed only 29% of the responders in favor of a Buckhead secession.  The big question is if that 29% were from the overall City of Atlanta, or from just Buckhead residents.