Atlanta Blogs Today: PBJ-AJC-WTF April 24 2007

How can you go wrong with nude drawing classes at a bar? Hope the kids at local art schools are taking advantage of this education.

— Mr. Kimberly at Neon Poisoning on last Saturday’s anniversary celebration at the Vortex. The party included performances by Kingsized, Dames Aflame and a nude drawing class.

Dames Aflame fans note: Neon Poisoning’s Flickr page includes some excellent photos from the evening, including a couple of MonkeyZuma without her monkey mask. See if you can spot her.

Remember the whole salmonella Peanut Butter thing that happened with Georgia’s aptly named “Con”agra foods? According to the Washington Post, the FDA knew about it and did nothing. I don’t mean they knew about it just before it happened. I mean they knew there were problems at the plant for years.

— Aging Hipster on the FDA’s failure to act when it learned in 2005 of salmonella problems at a Sylvester, Ga., peanut butter factory. Federal officials believe that peanut butter from the plant has caused at least 370 cases of salmonella poisoning since last August.

Here’s a sign of just how massive the cutbacks in journalism are going to be at the shrinking AJC: The newspaper used an AP wire story about the sentencing of Mayor Shirley Franklin’s ex-son-in-law, who was a large-scale drug dealer convicted in South Carolina. And the story also does not include a rather troubling aspect of the case — which Creative Loafing’s Mara Shalhoup had on the Web FOUR DAYS AGO — that the mayor’s former son-in-law is implicated in a double murder.

— Doug Monroe at Peachtree Screed on CL’s coverage of Mayor Franklin’s ex-son-in-law’s criminal activities. The story by Mara Shalhoup to which Doug refers is here.