Georgia Today: Heat strains hospitals; Union efforts fail at Savannah newspaper; Mastodon drummer

Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Monday, Aug. 7. I'm Peter Biello. On today's episode, rising temperatures put a strain on Georgia hospitals, an effort to unionize at the Savannah Morning News fails, and a conversation with the drummer of the Georgia-based band Mastodon. These stories and more are coming up on this edition of Georgia Today.

 

Story 1:

Peter Biello: Hospitals in Georgia are feeling the strain of temperatures that could climb to 100 degrees this week. Data from health care centers show hundreds of people across the Southeast are visiting emergency rooms for heat-related illnesses every day. GPB's Sofi Gratas has more.

Sofi Gratas: By mid-July at Piedmont Macon Medical Center. Jason Buckert, assistant medical director, says he was already seeing patients coming in with clammy skin, nausea and dizziness, classic signs of heat stress, as well as heat stroke.

Jason Buckert: So far this early in the season, I've definitely seen more cases than in the last two years that I can remember.

Sofi Gratas: He says in most cases, people at home can drink plenty of water and use cool rags and blowing air to cool the body down. And even if you are used to being outdoors, Buckert warns:

Jason Buckert: If you've lived in the Southern climate or hot, humid climate your whole life, you may not be as bothered by it. But it's still just as easy for your sort of system to become overwhelmed, 

Sofi Gratas: Buckert says young children and those over 65 are generally more at risk for heat related illness. For GPB News, I'm Sophie Gratas in Macon.

 

Story 2:

Peter Biello: A Southwest Georgia lawyer has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. William Calhoun, Jr. of Americus was convicted in March on multiple federal charges, including entering a restricted building and disorderly conduct. Evidence at trial showed that Calhoun attended then-President Donald Trump's "Stop the Steal" rally, then made his way to the Capitol, walking through it with a group of people pounding on doors. The U.S. Justice Department announced the sentencing on Friday.

 

Story 3:

Peter Biello: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Savannah district has a new commander. The agency says Col. Ron Sturgeon took over district command at a formal ceremony in Savannah on Friday. He'll oversee more than 700 employees tasked with a wide range of business-regulating activity, as well as hydropower and harbor dredging on the Savannah River. He succeeds former district commander Col. Joseph Geary, who's taking a position at the Pentagon.

 

Story 4:

Peter Biello: A unionization effort has failed at the Savannah Morning News amid staff departures at the Gannett-owned newspaper. GPB's Benjamin Payne reports.

Benjamin Payne: Earlier this year, eight reporters announced their intent to unionize at the Morning News. But in the time since several of those reporters left the paper before the failed vote was held last week. And another reporter, Marisa Mecke, told GPB she was not allowed to vote as her position is grant-funded.

Marisa Mecke: It pains me because I do love this newsroom deeply, and the people who have worked there — who still work there — are folks who deserve livable wages and they deserve to feel that they have the opportunity to have a place within Gannett. And I think that a lot of people felt that they didn't have that.

Benjamin Payne: In a statement, Gannett said employees at the Savannah Morning News made a, quote, "fully informed choice not to unionize," unquote. Gwinnett also owns the Athens Banner-Herald, where staff are expected to soon vote on whether they will unionize. For GPB News, I'm Benjamin Payne in Savannah.

 

Story 5:

Peter Biello: The government of Macon-Bibb County, has sued the owners of the Green Meadows apartment complex, which some call dangerous. The county says the owners aren't doing enough to ensure the safety of residents there. In a suit filed in Superior Court, the county cites homicides, assaults and the 1,800 911 calls placed from Green Meadows in a single year. The apartment complex has been put in the hands of a local attorney while the suit works its way through court as a means of helping current residents keep their homes.

Story 6:

Peter Biello: New funding will allow American nonprofit to expand their revitalization efforts downtown through small business loans. GPB's Eliza Moore reports.

Eliza Moore: NewTown Macon will use $9 million in new funding to help business entrepreneurs become business owners, according to NewTown president and CEO Josh Rogers.

Josh Rogers: There are going to be a ton of new people who have got the chance to succeed for the first time. This will change downtown and will change Macon for the better.

Eliza Moore: The partnership will help NewTown further invest in underserved populations through their direct loan program.

Josh Rogers: With this funding, we can start a 146 new businesses with over 400 jobs, including 80 owned by women and people of color.

Eliza Moore: Funding for the project comes from Cadence Bank. It's part of $842 million NewTown has helped invest in downtown over the last 25 years. For GPB News, I'm Eliza Moore in Macon.

Caption

Brann Dailor of Mastodon

Story 7:

Peter Biello: When Grammy Award-winning heavy metal rockers Mastodon are not on tour, they live right here in Atlanta. Jeremy Powell, host of GPB's Peach Jam podcast, got a chance to catch up with Mastodon's drummer and vocalist Brann Dailor.

Jeremy Powell: I don't like to put the label on the type of music people play, so I would like you to please tell me, what does Mastodon play?

Brann Dailor: Yeah, I don't know. I — like, like you said, you want — you want it to fall on me to describe it. I usually leave it up to other people to describe it, and I just do it with my pals, my other pals in Mastodon. I've read that we're sort of, uh, you know, we kind of are in a gray area where we, we kind of go in between a lot of different genres. But I would say the, the, the basis for it is in — is in hard rock or heavy metal.

Jeremy Powell: And the reason you're here at Georgia Public Broadcasting today is because not only are you a Grammy Award-winning artist in a huge metal band, but you're from Atlanta. You live right here in Georgia. Y'all are Atlanta-grown as a band.

Brann Dailor: Yeah, we are. Yeah, I live in Edgewood. Our first show in Atlanta was at MJQ and it was packed, You know, I mean, a lot of — all four of us, I think we're very like I worked at Junkman's Daughter, I worked at the Star Bar. Brent was a social butterfly as well. You know. Troy as well. Bill worked at El Myr, you know, so we were already kind of made a lot of friends right off the bat. And people were sort of excited about our — our project. They wanted to come see it, you know, new band in town, I guess, you know. And so they were small venues, you know, we played all of them. We just played The Earl many times. We played the Star Bar a bunch of times. We still have the sign at our practice space that says, you know, "Star Bar sold out" — our first sold-out Star Bar show. Um, when you play music that you love and you just get together with your buddies in your practice space and you work on your, your, your craft and you work on your tunes and you get them just the way you like them, you don't really expect that it's going to amount to what it's amounted to for us.

Jeremy Powell: In your words, what has it amounted to?

Brann Dailor: Oh, I mean, success beyond my wildest dreams. You know what I mean? I mean, we've, you know, we've we've done so much incredible, so many incredible things that so many, like, "pinch me" moments of my life are due to Mastodon and, you know, the music that we've created together, touring with every band I ever idolized as a kid, you know, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Slayer, uh, every band, you know. So I mean, and meeting and becoming friends with all those people is pretty amazing and — yeah. All the milestones. Being on Game of Thrones. I don't know. Just all the all the cool stuff, winning a Grammy and all that good stuff that I never thought anything, any of that stuff would ever happen. It happened. And man, it's really fun to be a part of it.

Jeremy Powell: You're currently on a world tour with Gojira. It's the Mega Monsters Tour 2023, and you're in studio here at GPB today because y'all are on a short break before you head back out. So what do you do, like when when you're touring the world? This is a big, massive tour all across the country and then overseas and you get a break. Like, what do you do to turn off?

Brann Dailor: Well, first thing I do is go to Kroger.

Jeremy Powell: Yeah.

Brann Dailor: And Troy and myself always compare grocery lists about a couple days before we're about to get home. And like, "you start your grocery list yet" and he's like, "Yep, I got it." That's — I really like to cook. So that's that's usually my, my thing I like to do to, to shut off. But I always have to keep chopping it up in the basement on my drums. I mean, I try to play just about every day except the weekends. I take the weekends off. You know, a 23- or 24-year-old is the person that wrote these songs on the drums. A bunch of them, you know, especially the ones that were playing on this this tour especially are heavy, fast, crazy stuff that we wrote when we were kids. And now I'm 48 years old and so I'm like, "Man, it takes a little bit more for me to get up to that level to do it." So I like to try to stay there.

Jeremy Powell: If somebody runs into you in Kroger over in Edgewood, yeah, what's the most complimentary thing they could say to you?

Brann Dailor: "Hey, nice produce." I don't know. I've had I had yesterday, I was maybe yesterday or the day before it was in the morning and I was headed over there and a woman flagged me down and she was like, Oh my God, we're listening to Mastodon!" And it was like a nice mom and her maybe 5-year-old kid, maybe 6 heading into first grade, just about to start first grade. And they were listening to Mastodon and they're in their their truck and they pulled over and I had a picture with the little boy and it was cool.

Jeremy Powell: I mean, you got to get pumped up for first grade, you know? 

Brann Dailor: Yeah you do. You got to get amped. Uh, it's scary to get to first grade. I just like, "Listen, you got this." It's just first grade. It's going to be. Don't worry, they're not going to, like, overwhelm you. But I was going to be some coloring, so don't worry. Give me fine, simple addition.

Jeremy Powell: Yeah, I think it's like.

Brann Dailor: But. Yeah. It's like it's it's not like I'm getting hounded at the Kroger all the time. Usually people just. If they come up and go, Oh, dude. You're the guy from the thing. Yeah. Yeah, I'm here. I'm cooking dinner. Some people, they don't know the Mastodon's from Atlanta, so they're there, which I think is crazy if you're from here. If you live here. It's wild to me to. To. But I guess there's there's all sorts of all different levels of fandom. But there is a level of fandom where you if you're recognizing the drummer, then maybe you probably know a little more than your average bear when it comes to Mastodon. But I feel like you should know that they live, you know, in your neighborhood probably, or maybe especially if you're at the same grocery store. But they've, you know, genuinely surprised to see me there, you know, But I get that in a sense of like maybe being younger. And see, I remember seeing my fifth grade teacher at the grocery store and just thinking like, what are you doing outside of the classroom? You're not supposed to be out amongst amongst the — the public, the people. You know, you're supposed to be kept in some kind of bunker and they shoot you through a bank tube up to the your desk and you, us, and then you go back to your hole. But I don't know, maybe they think the same thing about me.

Jeremy Powell: Yeah. Mastodon lives on the wax in the vinyl records or in the CDs, and that's it. They live in Spotify.

Brann Dailor: That's right.

Jeremy Powell: I appreciate your time. Thanks for joining me here.

Brann Dailor: Hey, thanks for having me. It was just a 12-minute drive from my house. All good.

Peter Biello: You can hear more about Mastodon on the Peach Jam podcast. Find it at GPB.org/PeachJam or listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

 

Story 8:

Peter Biello: There are an estimated 154,000 children in Atlanta who sometimes struggle to get enough to eat. That’s according to the Atlanta Community Food Bank. The food bank further estimates as many as 1-in-8 children in Georgia deal with what's often called food insecurity.  As GPB's Allexa Ceballos explains, one community advocate and cooking show contestant is calling attention to the issue.  

Kristen Elliott: What we're going to do is we're going to add our onion.

Allexa Ceballos: Dietitian Kristen Elliott hosts a live cooking show on YouTube broadcast from the Learning Kitchen at the Atlanta Community Food Bank in East Point. And today, she has a special guest.

Kristen Elliott: I would like to introduce chef Liana Pierre. She's our summer hunger ambassador and she is a contestant on season two of GPB's Great American Recipe.

Allexa Ceballos: Elliot's web show, Pantry to Plate, helps viewers utilize staple ingredients found in food banks to create quick, unique and nutritious meals. Liana Pierre has been volunteering with the food bank since she was in college. As a mom and a home cook, she understands being creative with what's in the pantry.

Liana Pierre: It's really all about what you have on hand. For me, recipes are a great guideline, especially if it's something that you've never made before, so you're not really sure how to do it. But then, based on what you have on hand, or even just what your taste preferences are, you switch it up how you eat.

Allexa Ceballos: As the Atlanta food banks, summer hunger ambassador and as a contestant on the Great American Recipe, Pierre is using her platform to highlight the issue of food insecurity.

Liana Pierre: I'm obviously passionate about food and recipes. You don't go on a show like the Great American Recipe if you don't like to cook. But food is also one of the ways that I show my love for people. I've chosen Atlanta as my adult home. I came down here to go to college at Emory, and I never left. I've fallen in love with this city and the life that it's allowed me to build. And so I care about what happens here. I care about what happens to the people here.

Allexa Ceballos: According to the Atlanta Food Bank statistics, nearly 11% of Georgians struggle to get enough to eat. That's also true for 1 in 8 Georgia children. Pierre says the issue is amplified when schools out for summer.

Liana Pierre: In the summertime. For children, this becomes so much of a bigger issue because a lot of children, they get two of their meals for the day at school. So when you take away those meals at schools for breakfast and for lunch on families that are already cash strapped, the burden becomes that much greater.

Allexa Ceballos: And Pierre says the issue may hit closer to home than you might think.

Liana Pierre: Doesn't have a particular look. I want people to know that there's a good chance that you actually know someone directly who is facing food insecurity or probably only one degree of separation away from that person.

Allexa Ceballos: And so Pierre says, if you have time, you should think about volunteering at your local food bank.

Liana Pierre: If you're not sure where to begin, because I know it can be overwhelming when you look at the news and you look around you and you feel like the problems are so much bigger than you are. Just start with one thing. Don't focus on trying to do everything. Food is my thing, but maybe education is your thing. Maybe, you know, afterschool enrichment is your thing.

Allexa Ceballos: Pierre says the trick is deciding how you can help, and starting there. You can see Liana Pierre in the finale of The Great American Recipe, airing tonight on GPB-TV. For GPB News. I'm Allexa Ceballos.

 

Story 9:

Peter Biello: The city of Atlanta kicks off a week of events this week celebrating 50 years of hip hop. A series of events that start today include academic talks, movie screenings, dance events and a concert. 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip hop, which is considered to have started on Aug. 1, 1973, at a party in the Bronx, New York City. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said in a press release. Atlanta's role in the evolution of hip hop has been, quote, outsized and indisputable and that it's only fitting the city join the community in celebrating the industry.

 

Peter Biello: Thanks so much for starting your week with the Georgia Today podcast. We hope you've had a great Monday. If you want to learn more about any of these stories, visit GPB.org/news and remember to subscribe to this podcast. We'll be back in your podcast feed tomorrow with all the top stories in the Peach State. If you have feedback or a story idea or would like to let us know what's going on in your community, we would love to hear about it. Email us. The address is GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.

---

For more on these stories and more, go to GPB.org/news