On Birmingham...

Well, to make a long story short, Birmingham was driven over the cliff by the likes of Scott Beason and William Bell.  The blame goes both ways with whites and blacks in Birmingham.  I lived there for enough years to realized that the people of Birmingham (yeah, I mean all of you in the region not just within Birmingham city limits), lack discerning abilities to wise decision on whom will represent you a local leadership or the Alabama Legislature.  It just seems there is no real willpower on the part of a significant portion of the citizenry to care enough to want to make an effort to progress the city forward rather than hobble along the way.  

Even more embarrassing is the filing for bankruptcy for Jefferson County, but this is a result of urban sprawl without any regard to negative effects to the surroundings, the idiocy within the Jefferson County government, and the city of Hoover.  Hoover was the ones whom owned the sanitary sewer treatment facility on Shades Creek that overflowed and wind up with the DOJ forcing Jefferson County to take control of all the sewer lines within the immediate Greater Birmingham area. 

As today, Birmingham has become battleground for where the Alabama immigration law debate will take place with leadership from congress meeting the local leadership about how it has negatively affected the city's  resources.  All I have to say is good luck because we all know that the reason why the Congressional Republicans haven't take up the immigration debate there in DC is because they know they will be exposed for the due-nothings they are in the US House.

UPDATE:  The latest developments with Birmingham itself is the creation of its first citywide, long-range, comprehensive plan since 1961 called "The Plan Birmingham".  Yeah, I'm like COME AGAIN?  Yeah, this is the first comprehensive plan they have created since post-integration period.  This alone is an embarrassment to humanity and anyone that has worked in the planning, economic development, and public policy making in Birmingham.

On the welcome page of The Plan Birmingham, there is a picture of Birmingham's mayor, William Bell's goofy, gap-toothed smiling face with a "message" about what he feels is the vision for the future of Birmingham.  Right below, his message was Roderick Royal, the current Birmingham City Council president with his statement as well.  Why is it this is the most substance of detail about this website's home page is beyond me?  The site details including the "Birmingham Resource Book" which is most GIS maps by census tract or overall area assessments of land usage, public facilities, water & watersheds, parks & recreations, personal vision statements by citizens, etc.

Overall, it is a well put-together site, but the GIS maps need major improvement like the parks and recreation map that doesn't label or has arrows that doesn't even point to the actual location of these facilities.  That is embarrassing, and should have been done better, Barry William, who is the city's GIS manager...

Finally, why is the city of Birmingham wasting taxpayer funds for outsourcing to a Boston-based firm for consultant work when you have full-time planners that handle community planning and development at the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham (RPCGB) right there on 1st Avenue North in downtown?   That is just plain STUPID and WASTEFUL on the mayor and city council part's not to take advantage of a free or nearly free resource of staff planners at the RPCGB, whom have done comprehensive plans for Bessemer among other area municipalities.  Also they can work on a regional scale and is very well capable of administering the regional initiatives such as the Green Birmingham, Prosperity and Opportunity economic development, and Getting from Here to There transportation and mobility initiatives with other area governments.

A moment to speak on Arizona...

Well since Arizona is apart of the Sunbelt, in my humble opinion a de facto extension of the South, so I'll speak on the Florida-esque state where they recently passed one of the most racebaiting laws in modern history against Hispanics in particular.  (Don't act all brand new, come on you know they were aiming for them...)

I just love the quotes of the Arizona's appointed governor, Jan Brewer, who was put in place last year after Janet Napolitano became Homeland Security secretary said:

"We in Arizona have been more than patient waiting for Washington to act, but decades of inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation."

Now I will say the immigration situation has gone on for far too long, but remember the under the 8 years of the Bush administration nothing occurred either.  The pragmatic part of me says "yeah, I agree Gov. Brewer", but the rational socially alert practical side of me sides "Uh, this heifer just gave the A'OK to racial profiling by responding to conservative white ignorance to preserve her seat in office for a full term come election time."  This law is so poorly written that even municipal police chiefs including the former chief of Phoenix suburb, Mesa, are against it, and that says A LOT.

I just love that good ol' anti-Washington sentiment where the talking conservative dittoheads do their dirty work blaming everybody but their own conservative representatives in Congress (HUH, John "I talk out of both sides of my mouth on everything" McCain, John Kyl, and the rest of the Congressional Republican brigade from AZ!).  Anyways, it gets even better when she said this:

"This bill strengthens the laws of our state, protects all of us, every Arizona citizen...  It does so while ensuring that the constitutional rights of all remain solid, stable."

Aww, how cute!  You are feeding the fodder for the alarmist crowd with the notion "we are now safe, now don't worry your pretty white head about those god-awful Mexicans".  A recent poll published in the Arizona Republic shows that the majority of the (white) Arizonians support this fuckery by 70%.  Yeah, this is bullshit at it extraordinarily worst, and we can see some white people will give life to ANYTHING and the foolish in the GOP (and to certain extension the Democratic Party) will feed into their ignorance to stay in office.  Yet the entire state of Arizona was a part of Mexico once upon a time, so the whites pushing this law are not only racist but subjecting those whose families may have a long history with the land than there was a state known as Arizona to racial profiling because of their paranoia.  TISK, TISK, TISK....

However, there is a more!  Arizona State House passed a bill about 2 weeks ago that requires the subjective declaration that Presidential candidates are native-born American citizens and want to see proof of their birth certificate shown to the Arizona Secretary of State, who handles candidates who appear on the ballot and other electoral issues.  In other words, they want to require the current sitting president, Barack Obama, proof of natural born citizenship before he can be placed on the ballot in 2012.  Yeah, these idiots are UNBELIEVABLE in Arizona, but at least they are now topping Virginia these days for once.  However, we are seeing the retrograding of previously pseudo-progressive or forward-thinking states, but Arizona has always been more conservative since it's high older white retiree population like Florida.  Also let's not forget it was the last 2 states (along with New Hampshire) to recognize Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday as a state holiday in 1990 (co-thanks to John McCain and then-sitting AZ governor Evan Mecham)...

The fallout is widespread from San Francisco city attorney is calling for a boycott of Arizona to Congressional Democrat, Raul Grijalva, from Arizona actually calling of a boycott of his own home state to tourism and economic development officials are worried to a refried bean swastika being painted on the windows of the Arizona State Capitol building in Phoenix. 

All this history of Arizona and its fuckery is enough to definitely hamper their economic development ventures among other things.  What ashame!  I once upon a time wanted to move to Phoenix, but after learning all this about Arizona and its socially conservative and aversive racist history and mindset, NOPE!