The Purpose of Reform

Editor's Note: I will sometimes cross-post my entries to Street Prophets out of a desire to increase my hits and get additional exposure. Yesterday's post created a minor firestorm of negative comments and thus I felt compelled to write a response.

-CK.

Had I known my previous diary would have created so much fuss and so many negative responses, I would have tried to couch my argument in much more diplomatic, tactful terms. Do allow me this opportunity, if you will, to defend myself and to furthermore emphasize what I was attempting to say.

I feel that I have been misunderstood. Please allow me the ability to set the record straight.

In doing so, I would also invite you to take a second look at my earlier entry. In your haste to criticize me, I daresay you some of completely missed my point altogether.

If I erred, I erred in phrasing my criticisms in terms of us versus them. I meant no disrespect to Unitarian Universalism, nor individual Unitarian Universalists. When I was a member, I know I would have taken posts such as mine in the spirit of constructive criticism and out of a desire to affect change and make needed reforms. Indeed, I spent many a national con in lusty conversation with other UUs who had identified similar problems and at the time I listened with a rapt ear to their own unique pet theories regarding the ways things ought to be. Several of them blog and use their own personal weblogs as a launching pad by which to best extrapolate their ideas.

Our desire in doing so was be to improve the faith, maintain its membership, and furthermore patch the trouble areas. Or to put it simply, the reason we even bothered to waste our breath is because we loved our church. We saw spirituality and especially organized religion, any organized religion, as an evolving process constantly in need of being modified to suit changing times.

Perhaps I'm different than a lot of people. I'm a reformer by nature and to me, even the supposedly most perfect system ever created leaves room for improvement. I feel the same way about anything I hold dear. This goes equally for music, the written word, films, and my favorite sports team. None of us live in a vacuum or immune from the passage of time and as such I believe we are constantly in search of perfecting ourselves. Thus it's not surprising that the elements in our life which we hold dear reflect this own innate sense of striving for perfection.

In reading back over what I wrote earlier today, if I had it to go over again I would have made a point to add a few well-placed qualifying statements. These would have made a point to mention that my criticisms noted problems I have observed in the whole of liberal religion. The main idea, namely, that in a desire to be as inclusive as possible we have progressively whittled away more and more the meat of that which we believe. In a comment posted today to my blog, a Quaker blogger pointed out that the same issue exists to some degree in Quakerism as well, which is to say that no liberal movement, even the one I currently hold in favor, is immune to this same sort of quandary.

In conclusion, please hear this. I put my heart and soul into being the best Unitarian Universalist I could possibly be for eight years. Then my priorities changed. Then I changed. I found that I had serious problems with a faith which I had once been so committed. It broke my heart and I felt deeply disappointed. In time and with the insight of maturity, however, I have realized that no faith journey is static and that my time as a Unitarian was another journey along the way--merely another knot on a rope that exists next to the one I label Methodism.

I'm not sure where my faith journey leads me. Rest assured, however, that if Quakerism is the path by which God is leading me, you'll likely hear one, if not several of my theories of what it needs to work on. Think of that in terms of that of a Mentor or a Parent offering constructive criticism, the implication not to tear down, but to reveal the truth in an effort to build up.

What a Difference Sensible Doctrines Make

This past weekend I attended a Quaker meeting and found it much to my liking. I noticed some similarities between its philosophy and the Unitarianism I practiced for eight years, but also recognized some crucial differences. By differences, I mean adherence to sensible doctrines that had Unitarian Universalism taken more strides towards adopting I'm very sure I would not have left it behind. Yet, upon further contemplation, I recall that I do know enough of change and the inevitable human tendency to resist it to have come to this conclusion--namely, that the needed reforms may not be forthcoming for quite some time to come, if they arrive at all, and I for one am not willing to sit around and play the game of wait-and-see.

Returning to Quakerism---upon my visit, I was handed the obligatory newcomer's packet, full of introductory materials. These I read through with no small degree of interest. One passage in particular caught my eye.

Quakerism is here described in terms of its ideals, not necessarily its attainments. In avoiding one form, Friends sometimes slip into another. Forms and creeds are inevitable. They have important uses, especially in education, where forms are used to show what ought to be their real content, and even, sometimes, to create the content. Our Christian religion would be weak and vague without the doctrines which undergird it. Quakerism does not aim at formlessness and undiluted mysticism (emphasis mine).

Unitarianism in its current incarnation purports to be a creedless faith which openly shuns dogma and doctrinal requirements. In reality, such a position often leaves it rudderless. The church adopted the Seven Principles as a means of addressing this lack. However, as the UU blog The Socinian recently pointed out, "[The Seven Principles] may be sound rules to live by, but they aren’t our creed or a statement of our highest truths. They are no more than a transitory statement of broad propositions that all of us in our wide theological diversity were at one time willing to support, a lowest common denominator."

I am not uncomfortable with doctrines when they serve a purpose, for I have observed for myself the sort of formless nihilism which results when they do not exist at all. The wording of the passage above takes into account several important precepts.

a) Human imperfection has a ways of reducing ideals to rougher, imperfect reality
b) Attempts to avoid creedal statements often inevitably become creedal statements in spite of themselves
c) Without some degree of underpinning, religion suffers from a lack of substance and strength

My other concern regards the unfortunate tendency that often Unitarians take in looking first, foremost, and sometimes only within their own ranks for the source of ultimate truth; this implies strongly that only we can understand us. Doing so produces a myopic, short-sighted tunnel vision which often discounts the usefulness of other faiths traditions. It's a circle-the-wagons, insular, bubble mentality that reminds me a little of a Soviet Propaganda film. This defensive posture couches all events, identities, policies, and daily minutia in cloying, self-referential terms of purpose and esoteric phrasing.

By contrast, I refer to the above passage one final time and note that that Quakerism makes a point to refer to itself as a Christian faith, even citing passages in The Bible to emphasize its roots. I do understand that some Friends do not self-identify as Christian but I daresay they are probably not as squeamish with scriptural references as UUs. When Unitarianism jettisoned itself from Christianity, the results rendered it closer to a cult of wounded souls in a state of suspended uncertainty. I am pleased to know that Quakers have not acted in kind.

Happy Birthday to Bill Hicks

Bill Hicks would have been forty-six today.

A singular talent who passed away in relative obscurity before he reached the age of thirty-five, Hicks' uncompromising, unflinching style and simultaneous disdain of the trappings of fame ensured that he remained widely unknown during his lifetime. Better known in the UK than in his native America, he was nonetheless adored on both shores by an appreciative cult audience who immediately took to his acid-tipped satire. Hicks deliberately shunned widespread fame by refusing to lend his name or image to endorse any product and actively incorporated anti-consumerist rhetoric into his fiery routines.

His rants reveal a keen grasp of human nature, particularly in its darker elements. Typical targets include the soullessness of mainstream culture, the evil of marketing and advertising, and the exploitive power of religious hypocrisy. Yet, in spite of the raw anger inherent in his standup, his basic message remained that of transcendence-- as he frequently reminded audiences, "The truth will set you free."

Since his 1994 death from pancreatic cancer, the legend of Bill Hicks has grown by leaps and bounds and the ranks of his admirers swells every more with the passage of time. His often-philosophical routines cater particularly to a demographic of disaffected, malcontented liberals, particularly the so-called angry young men of the left, who see in him an effective anti-hero prophet. It's easy to see why. His views reflect those of the chronically misunderstood and disenfranchised. Raised Southern Baptist in Texas, he left behind his conservative upbringing and spoke darkly and critically of the unthinking masses, their superstitions, and their failings.

Like most visionaries, his words seem ever more applicable with time. One wonders what he would have to say about our current state of affairs.

Fans have put together a MySpace Music page which features some of his best routines. Check it out if you're curious. See the below video for Hicks in action.

Saturday Song

The best music ever produced by three dudes who all look peculiarly like Cave Men.

Plug

Please visit the newest member of the Comrade Kevin's Blogroll!

What are You Reading?

Dragon reviews a variety of different books from a multitude of genres.

A Few Lessons in Safe Logic

Here, another in a long series of lessons in safe logic. Namely, thou shalt not resort to hyperbole when an accurate portrayal of the facts deserves to be told. I've seen evidence of similar histrionics in the prose of many members of the mainstream media and from both the right and left. No one side is any more or any less guilty of said offense, only that either side uses a different mechanism in going about it.

First, an event from our racist past.



In 1956, popular Black entertainer Nat King Cole played in front of a sold-out, adoring crowd at Birmingham, Alabama's Boutwell Auditorium. While in the middle of a song, a group of three extreme racists made an ill-advised invasion of the stage and managed to awkwardly topple Cole from his piano bench. Their efforts might have been more fruitful had not they been almost immediately intercepted by several white police officers who quickly took charge of the situation. A fourth man who had participated in plotting the event was later arrested in connection with the crime. All four were eventually tried and and convicted.

However, subsequent accounts often refer to this event as "Cole attacked on stage by white mob". I hardly think three people constitute much of a mob. The event is shocking enough on its own and thus there's no need to distort the truth. Many of the violent events of the Civil Rights Movement are shockingly brutal enough on their own without the need to resort to hyperbole. In attempting to use a broad brush to paint an account of our past, the mainstream media often sensationalizes situations like these.

Furthermore, an eyewitness account of the event recently provided by a Mr. Jim Felts, who was in the auditorium at the time, states that, in his words, "this phrase [white mob] is a gross misrepresentation at best, and leads the reader to infer that that a large part of the audience participated in, or approved of the attack."

He continues to say "it is safe to say the white audience would have happily lynched the four idiots who attacked an entertainer [they] loved". After all, the crowd of several thousand, most of whom were white, had paid almost one day's wagers to see Cole, who was at that time one of the most popular artists in the nation.

He concludes by saying that "The [media]...constantly bemoans "code words" and hyperbole that inflames racial attitudes. If I were a black person reading about this "white mob" attacking a black entertainer, I would surely react different than if I read about four racists who committed this idiotic crime".

Second, an account from everyone's favorite right-wing curmudgeon, Cal Thomas.

I read Mr. Thomas' often smarmy invective out of a desire to see how what the other side is thinking. Case in point, Faux News has been currently jumping up and down reporting how, yet again, Christianity is under attack. When asked to produce evidence of it, they refer to the recent church incident in Colorado, where gunman Mathew Murray's stated objective in killing members of the New Life Church were to punish Christians for their role in creating most of the problems of the world.

Thomas writes, "Does that qualify as a 'hate crime'? Probably not, as such designations are usually given only to "oppressed minorities."

The logic in these statements, if one can call them that, is two fold.

1. It assumes that all liberals have secret desires to destroy Christianity by violent methods and that the religion at a whole is under attack.

Let's back up a bit here. This a man who, if facts of the case serve me correctly, came OUT of the community itself. He's hardly some outside invader. Murray was clearly a very troubled soul and his statements ought to be taken as the ramblings of someone with severe mental illness. It frankly troubles me the line of thought that says that the ramblings of the disturbed somehow are indicative of the viewpoints one's opposition as a whole.

2. Justice is some commodity that is rapidly becoming the sole domain of protected minorities. Either that, or there's some sort of base inequality in the justice system that does not extend equal protection to Christians and violent attacks upon them.

However, incidents like this fly in the face of that sort of logic.

Muslim helps Jews attacked on NYC Subway.

The supreme irony of course is that a *gasp* Muslim intervening on behalf of Jew serves as a far better example of upholding the Christmas spirit then any so-called believer. This is the same Christmas currently under attack, if one believes the rhetoric.

Your humble narrator identifies as Christian, but he also identifies as a free-thinker. He feels that faith, spirituality, and religion as a whole ought to evolve with the times. Furthermore, he is made uncomfortable when anyone attempts to take religion, any religion, and use it as a rhetorical ace-in-the-hole. I'm remind of that in particular when I consider the so-called religious litmus test one must apparently pass in order to secure the GOP's nomination for President in 2008.

There's No Atmosphere on the Moon

In making this post, I'm going against one of my blogging rules, which reads: The Blogger Shall Never Post About Sports. It's nothing personal, folks. Please allow me to make that quite clear to all of you rabid sports fans out there. Admittedly, I have already broken this rule once this year already. What's once more?

Readership, you must understand that I feel that sports are a fun distraction from the increasingly heavy, negative times in which we live, but neither by any stretch of the means do I think that they're a matter of vital importance. Any sort of congressional investigation of sports is time wasted which could be spent on much better things. To wit, this is one of those times where I feel compelled to speak not because I find it important, but because so many other people find it important. Here, yet another lesson in safe logic.

The moral lesson to be pulled from this mess of across the board flagrant usage of steroids by Major League Baseball players seems to be cut and dried. This is the price we pay for coddling and vastly overpaying an elite group of prima donnas who play a child's game for a living. Can anyone really be surprised? Am I saying anything particularly new or novel when making this statement, the general sentiment of which must be on the lips of so many people at this exact instant.

Over the past thirty years it has been well-documented how the price of a ticket, parking, concessions, and souvenirs have risen to obscene levels. Why anyone would wish to pay $6 for a 50 cent cup of stale tap beer or shell out $35 for a replica jersey of one's favorite player is beyond me. Why we would want to pay so dearly for our entertainment is still another, and reveals rather pointedly that we must be desperate to escape our humdrum existence of day to day living. Perhaps this is a fallacy of the human condition, albeit one that can be easily addressed in the name of personal responsibility but only as long as we, individually, make the effort.

Still, one can't help recalling that it did not use to be this way. Forty years ago baseball players made a decent leaving at the sport but certainly not enough by salary alone to constitute extreme wealth. It could easily be argued that domineering owners were the ones who profited most and made pots full of money off the backs of their players. The move to correct this and spread the wealth out more equitably amongst all those involved went way too far in the other direction. I often make a point that this is one of the paradoxes of human behavior. The pendulum never seems to reach happy medium point, but instead swings from pole to pole.

Here's what I propose and do take this with as many grains of sand as you wish. I would recommend highly that everyone should undertake and put into action the lost art of creating something worthwhile and substantive, or at minimum adding something intrinsically positive to the world. Doing so has always been a far more satisfying endeavor than passively watching any ballgame for me, at least. By "creating", allow me to expand the definition to include many things. Volunteer at a homeless shelter. Talk to an old friend. Read a book. Exercise. Make something with your hands.

Sports have their place in society. They can be remarkably unifying, egalitarian, and cross-cultural. They are a fun outlet and a hobby for many people. However, like everything else in this world, taken to excess they are damaging.

___________________________

Read the Full Report, here.

Classes Which Need to be Taught

I got this from Blue Gal by way of Dr. Zaius

"Write about 5 classes you would like to take if you could make up your own curriculum. AND - and this is important, ONE of them must come from your tagger's list."

I believe that some of these were meant to be light-hearted but I seem to be in a more serious mood today. Suppose I'll roll with it rather than fight it.

GS 114. Critical Thinking (3 credits) MWF 11:00 am-12:30 pm

This mandatory class for all incoming Freshman encourages students to be able to think for themselves. This hands-on class forces students to formulate their own opinions separate from personal bias, spin, and baseless prejudice. A wealth of alternate points-of-view will be actively discussed. This course will also include a weekly series of outside speakers who will speak on a variety of diverse topics. These talks will pull from a wide cross section of different cultures, religions, and political persuasions. Prepare to have your world view expanded and your heretofore unquestioning opinions called to task.


SOC 42DD Teh Hott For Any Weight (3 credits) Tu Th 8:00 pm-9:00 pm

Learn the ways by which our culture encourages people, particularly women, to conform to unrealistic standards of physical beauty for the sake of making maximum profit for corporations. Learn how few people are capable of looking like models. Be exposed to alternate cultural expectations of body shape that do not conform to the current model proposed by looks-obsessed Western culture. The point will be hammered home when students will watch a series of mind-expanding and utterly unsettling documentaries. Final paper topics in past have included titles such as Why I'm Happy with the Way I Look Now and No Wonder I Used to Have an Eating Disorder.

Upon completion of the class, students often find their sense of satisfaction with their own bodies to be at an all-time high.


EC 200 Rudimentary Economics (3 credits) Tu Th 2:00 pm-3:00 pm

Learn how to balance a checkbook, avoid taking out credit cards, make wise decisions with their personal income, and how to avoid falling into risky lending schemes created by unbridled, unregulated greed. This information should have been dispensed by parents around the dinner table, but research has recently revealed that this information is rarely taught by parents and that most young people no longer sit around dinner tables with the rest of the family.

Students will learn the disquieting reality of where money really comes from, how it is created, and how to use that knowledge to their own benefit.

Warning. This class might make you a communist.


HE 230 Effective Sex Education MWF 12-1:30

This hour and a half course will be taught in an spirit of open-minded discussion free from scorn or doses of shame. Lies and misinformation, particularly those advanced by Fundamentalist teachings, will be education actively refuted. Slides showing diseased genitals in advanced stages of syphilis will not be shown. Abstinence-only curriculum will not be advanced. Students will learn a variety of different means of contraceptives, none of which involve the phrase You CAN pull out, right? Romanticizing one's virginity will not be allowed, since no one's first sexual encounter has any sort of aesthetic purity, unless by pure you really mean extreme awkwardness.

AS 300 Deflating the Cult of Celebrity Th 3:00 pm- 5:00 pm

Students will learn the virtues of ignoring soft news and the behavior of dysfunctional, drug-addicted stars. This course will make a point of encouraging students to create their own drama if they're really that desperate for salacious gossip. The reality of celebrity will be discussed, particularly the pitfalls of wealth. The fallacy of living a life of quiet desperation will be exposed.

This course is a fine companion with GS 114. (See above).

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

Readership, I found this yesterday on Blue Gal's page, so those of you who have been to her site might find this a bit extraneous. I wanted to add my own two cents.

Apparently the fine folks at WalMart want our young teenage girls to never forget this.



This is wrong on so many levels. I don't know where to begin. This would be not nearly as offensive on a t-shirt or a wallet, but on a pair of panties clearly designed for TWELVE TO SIXTEEN YEAR OLD GIRLS this suggests something absolutely appalling. It's still wrong no matter how old the women in question happen to be. The age thing just adds an even more sinister edge to it. Nothing like the suggestion of underage girls selling their intimate areas for cash, but certainly not plastic.

Read more, here.

I discussed this with a friend of mine who lives in Australia. She wrote this in response.

I have a hard time finding decent clothes for my seven year old girl. she's seven! She does not need midriff baring tops, tops with slogans on them, skirts that are ridiculously short. not just short skirts but RIDICULOUSLY short. Items promoting all sorts of fucked up shit. I get so mad about this.


But then again, no one said WalMart had good taste. This shirt was recently featured on the racks as well.



What's next? "Some say it's rape, I call it hot sex"? Or: "Some call it domestic violence, I say I'm just teaching her a lesson"?

While you're there you can also pick up my personal favorite, Bratz dolls. These are some of the tamer variety. I wasn't able to find the ones that look like 100% harlot.




Not that the name itself isn't appalling enough. These dolls, clearly designed for the tween, early teen set wear short, midriff revealing clothing, globs of makeup, and apparently delight in looking like borderline prostitutes. What a great example for impressionable young girls to aspire to be! Don't worry about being reasonable or unselfish, girls, because remember it's all about you and how good you look in front of the boys!



Let's not also forget the thong for Preteen girls. This item speaks for itself.

Random Factoid: 90% of all people shop at WalMart.

Comrade Kevin is glad to be in the 10% who don't.

Quote of the Day

"I love America, but I don't like it."

-Sinclair Lewis.

This keeps getting truer and truer for me by the day.

Evolution or Bust

When I was in grad school, one of the topics we discussed concerned the onward pace of humanity. One school of thought, the fatalistic side, argued that we humans were evolving at a rate of speed far beyond our own ability to correctly perceive it. The other side, the optimists, argued instead that we were instead on the path towards telepathy.

I find myself more inclined to the former viewpoint, but let me qualify it slightly by saying our technology is evolving at a rate of speed beyond our ability to make ethical decisions regarding it. The pace of technology which grows more hyperactive by the moment doesn't provide us much time to reflect, contemplate, or ponder. What was new yesterday becomes antiquated and outdated today and I doubt seriously we can get our minds around much of anything that progresses in such a fashion.

A different but related matter comes to mind. Regarding human evolution as a whole, I was directed today to a link in National Geographic Magazine.

Human Evolution Speeding Up

It makes sense, when you think about it. Evolution is, as we know, a process expedited by exposure to stimuli. With more stimuli and more people comes more evolution. As our human population swells, so with it comes evolutionary mutations to bacteria and animal alike. The article points out that the rapid pace of evolution is a recent phenomenon. Perhaps the problems of modern society are a response to a reaction wholly unprecedented in the history of man.

Not only are we evolving at a faster clip, but we are evolving far beyond each other. Africans are evolving in totally different fashion that Europeans. Asians are evolving differently than Europeans. With such much evolutionary friction and cross-pollination, one wonder what end results will be created by the process of exponential growth. By the year 2050, the planet Earth which will contain fully 12 billion residents.

MySpace Music Page!

I figured, you know, what the hell.

*pimps*

Cabaretic's Music Page

New Songs

I've been experimenting with a multi-track recorder and have set down two songs.

1. Motion Pictures

2. At The Zoo

___________________

In other news, I am pleasantly surprised that Barack Obama has made substantial gains on Clinton's lead. This is from someone who volunteered to help with campaign before bowing out over serious disagreements with the strategy. He has come out swinging in recent days but I still hold serious doubts. Hillary Clinton has shown herself to be a candidate with serious flaws. Had they been exposed before now, I doubt she could have effectively solidified her base of support.

What almost goes without saying is although Obama has made great strides in recent weeks, she still leads him overwhelmingly in all but a few states. Obama has set himself up on a course to take the nomination in a fight on the floor of the Convention, which ironically I find much more likely a scenario in the GOP convention.

Caption this Photo

Saturday Video

Help!

The Story Meme

FranIAm tagged me, so I'm going to continue.

I'm not much of a tagger and am sort of opposed to it on principle, so if any of you lot wish to continue the story, go for it.


I woke up hungry. I pulled my bedroom curtain to the side and looked out on a hazy morning. I dragged myself into the kitchen, in search of something to eat. I reached for a jar of applesauce sitting next to the sink, and found it very cold to the touch. I opened the jar and realized it was frozen. (Splotchy)

"That's strange," I said out loud to no one in particular. My fingers slowly reached towards the jar again. My body experienced a wave of apprehension as weighted blanket covering me as I did so. The jar was completely frozen.

I picked it up and stared at it, my fingers stung with little knives of chill. "What the..." again I spoke aloud. Then I realized what had happened with a shock. Suddenly the jar flew from my hand. It shattered creating a collage-like mixture of frozen applesauce and glass shards on my kitchen floor, the lid lazily rolling to a stop across the room.(FranIam)

"Goddamn it," I yelled, cursing my bad luck and my lack of co-ordination. Oafish is a word that has been used to describe me from time to time. If I don't fall on my face at least once a week, I know there's something wrong with me.

Snapping back to reality, I took stock of the situation. Though I was not wearing shoes, I was lucky enough that the mess was several feet away and thus not close enough to have cut me. The worst thing I had to worry about was cleaning up a spiraling trail of mushy, clotted applesauce and globs of glass. Most of it lay in one big sideways vomit across the linoleum floor, about two feet from the refrigerator. I sighed and walked towards the closet where I keep the dustpan and broom. (Comrade Kevin)

See The Sky About to Rain

Birmingham Disappointment

White flight decimated the City of Birmingham, scattering the majority of its wealth and white population over Shades and Double Oak mountain. Motivated partially out of racism, partially out of a failure of white and black leadership to reach any sense of consensus, the past thirty-five years have produced the rise of the suburbs and the slow death of the city. This is not an particularly original story. It's no different here than in many other cities in the United States. The history of major metropolitan areas North and South, East and West, will show the same tale.

The predominantly white, affluent suburb in which I live is named Hoover. Some twenty years ago, under the premise of if you build it, they will come a plethora of wealthy white businessmen pooled their money and funded the then-largest shopping center in the Southeast. The Galleria transformed a sleepy little community into a thriving city of 80,000 residents. The success of Hoover moved Birmingham's population further and further away from the city center. What remains worthwhile in Birmingham is the Southside, home to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the largest employer, a few good restaurants, and a shopping center called The Summit. Most of the city is impoverished, overwhelmingly African-American, and a cesspool of run-down eyesores.

When Larry Langford was elected Mayor of Birmingham three months ago, I knew trouble was on the way. Known for no small lack of ambition and a flair for the dramatic, Langford proceeded to push a large tax increase through the City Council. It was overwhelming approved yesterday. As of 1 January, the sales tax for the city itself will be increased to ten cents upon every dollar for the next six years and the tax upon businesses will be effectively doubled from now on.

What I object to most is the heavy-handed way by which this matter was handled. When business leaders protested, Langford and a few devotees on the Council caustically dismissed them. "If you leave, someone else will come," they said. "If you sell your dealership, we'll find someone else who will buy it."

Our local paper, The Birmingham News, came out strongly against the proposal. Letters to the Editor were resounding against the proposal as well. I estimate that they ran 70% against to 30% for the proposal. No specifics of this increased tax revenue have thus been spelled out, which is an accountability nightmare. Furthermore, sales taxes are not "fair and equitable", no matter what the spin doctors say. They are the most regressive taxes of all, which punish the poor to a much larger degree than they affect the wealthy. The much fairer way to resolve this situation would be to rise property taxes but doing so would have required a county-wide vote, a vote which would likely have failed.

The tax revenue is supposed to be raised to improve public transportation and build a domed stadium. Count me as someone who would love to not have to rely on his car to get everywhere, but I have a feeling that money itself is not going to be sufficient in and of itself. Effective public transportation would take into account the suburbs as well as the city of Birmingham and one gets the feeling that the public transportation system proposed would halt at the city limits.

A domed stadium has been proposed for fifteen years. The intent is to attract a big name sports program and to draw more civic and sports events to the city. I do not see the NFL, NBA, NHL, or MLB coming to call at any future date. I see instead a domed stadium which sits empty most of the time and when it is built is filled to, at best, half capacity. It's a panacea, at best, a dream which will likely be deferred forever.

Really, when you get down to it, the whole point of this tax is to try to save Birmingham. Instead, I think the net result will be the final nail in the city's coffin. I see a wide spread boycott of the few remaining Birmingham businesses which are solicited by patrons who live outside the city itself. I see the few remaining business mainstays who have remained within the city limits uprooting and moving to the suburbs. I see the destruction of the up and coming small businesses and entrepreneurs that the city desperately needs to stay competitive with the suburbs.

The Music Meme, Ganked From Damn Near Everyone

The rules:

1. Put your music player on Shuffle
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER WHAT (this is in capital letters, so it is very serious.

1. IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY? Get Back- The Beatles

2. WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY? Panic- The Smiths

3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL? (Straight To Your Heart) Like A Cannonball- Van Morrison

4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY? Something in the Way- Nirvana

5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE? The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get- Morrissey

6. WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO? Fuckin' With My Head- Beck

7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU? Now Mary- The White Stripes

8. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS? Glory Box- Portishead

9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN? Lord Only Knows- Beck

10. WHAT IS 2+2? Everybody Wants You- Sloan

11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND? This is a Low- Blur

12. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Sleep To Dream- Fiona Apple

13. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY? I am the Mob- Catatonia

14. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? Walking Down The Highway- Graham Coxon

15. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Remember- John Lennon

16. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU? Poor Boy- Nick Drake

17. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING? Rip It Up- Orange Juice

18. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL? I'm Not Like Everybody Else- The Kinks

19. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST? In Love- The Raincoats

20. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET? Care of Cell 44- The Zombies

21. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS? Glass Onion- The Beatles

22. WHAT SHOULD YOU POST THIS AS? Anyone Can Play Guitar- Radiohead