Cathy Bradberry

Crime and cinema go hand-in-hand, but in real life, art heists are much less romantic than the version we've seen on the big screen.

About ten years ago, the Athens community was sharply divided, and rising tensions spilled over into an often-rancorous meeting of the Mayor and Commission.

The issue at hand wasn’t wages, or poverty, or development, or housing, or any of the other systemic issues that have bedeviled lawmakers for years. This hotly debated issue was … cats. Specifically feral cats and how to handle the growing number of feral cat colonies in the county. Some ten years later, the colonies are still here, but they are more closely monitored and managed.

A group of UGA professors and students is trying to help demystify tax filing for Athens residents through a national program called Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, or VITA.  The program offers free tax filing for residents with low to moderate incomes, disabled persons and even some for whom English is not their native language.  

The monsters are on full display at the Georgia Museum of Art’s exhibit ‘The Monsters are Due on Broad Street: Patrick Dean,’ celebrating works by the comic artist who worked at Flagpole from 1997 to 2006.  Hillary Brown is director of communications at GMOA, and as a huge fan of Dean’s work, also curated the exhibit.  She based the title of the exhibit on an episode of "The Twlight Zone" titled "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" i