• Longtime Atlanta radio and television personality dead.

Keith Kalland, radio and television personality, known for his humorous traffic reports, died at age 51. The official cause of death is being reported as heart failure. He had suffered health problems in the past, but lately had appeared healthy, until being admitted to the hospital this weekend.

Kalland was known for quotes such as his famous "stick a fork in it, it is done," and his rants against rubber-neckers and bad drivers. He is survived by a wife and two children.

Other local stories can be found here and here.

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• Virginia Anderson of the AJC wonders why Southerners do not find another way to bring honor to the South's ancestors.

Dishonored and humiliated, some of us flail about searching for some way to bring honor to ourselves and our ancestors, most of them dirt poor, uneducated farmers who bore arms for the rights of rich plantation owners to own other human beings.

What is really pitiful is that we think that by waving that damn flag, or dancing to "Dixie," we can somehow do that.

There are so many good parts to being a Southerner -- the love of the land, the kindness of the people, the strumming of pine trees against a sky rinsed clean by an overnight rain.

Like Virginia, I went to high school in Athens, Georgia. Yes, the school bands used to play Dixie at the end of football games. We used to listen to southern rock, drink harsh liquor, drag race, and date teenage girls with big hair. I used to think that was a part of being southern.

Lynyrd Skynyrd used to have a big Dixie flag behind them on stage when they played in concert. I wanted one for my room. I remember telling my mom about that. She was horrified. I did not understand what the flag meant to other people. She did, and certainly did not want her son having such a symbol of hatred in his room.

I did not get the flag for my wall, but it wasn't until many years later that I truly understood why. I certainly agree with my mom. I am ashamed for ever wanting one. I cringe whenever I see flags on the back of pickup trucks driving around. I am embarrassed for my state when I see pictures of Governor elect Perdue with some guy brandishing the flag in the background.

To me being Southern is so much more than a divisive flag. It is about loving our beautiful land, smelling ham being cooked, watching a reddish leaf float down from the sky in the cool autumn, the smell of pine trees in the crisp winter air, and secretly throwing away fried okra, while the rest of my family eat those vile little things. I do not need to step on others to show myself as proud.

It does not matter if the flag ever had a noble meaning, and I certainly don't think fighting for state's rights so people could own slaves ever was. Even if it did, it does not now. That flag has been co-opted by racists, by hate groups, and by a bunch of old racist men who decided to tack it on to our lovely Georgia State Flag in 1956 to protest desegregation. Regardless of the original meaning of the flag, it is now dirty and sullied. Why not find a better way to show out pride in being Southern?

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