Atlanta Braves moving to Cobb County

Atlanta is abuzz over the beloved Atlanta Braves baseball team, which is physically moving from Atlanta to suburban Cobb County.



Turner Field, built in 1996 for the Olympics, will be razed. (Already?!) The people of Cobb County are in shock. Some are ecstatic, while others are already feverishly-planning alternate driving-routes for use during Atlanta's wildly-popular baseball season.

PRICEY REAL ESTATE is at STAKE, people, and its a crisis. The money-men have spoken; the movers and shakers have pushed this through in a hurry and with a vengeance. The property that is now occupied by Turner Field will become a "large-scale development"--and the profits will be astronomical.

What is interesting to me is how the local Tea Party unexpectedly made common cause with some of the liberal Democrats in the area. From a Daily Beast post, aptly titled Tea Party Strikes Out Against the Atlanta Braves:

[Instead of] protests from fans in their current home downtown, the team has gotten an earful from furious Tea Party activists in Cobb County, the Republican-dominated portion of the metro area that was once the heart of Newt Gingrich’s congressional district and will now be home to the 60-acre site the team has chosen for its new stadium.

The Tea Party anger is focused on the county’s usually small-government, anti-tax Republican board of commissioners, which enticed the baseball team with a commitment of $300 million in public funds to go toward a new $672 million stadium for the ball club. But while the county commission called the stadium deal a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” the local Tea Party activists called foul, accusing the commission of rushing to a vote without enough public review and opening up the latest front in the war between Tea Party groups and the Republican establishment that pushed for the deal.

“I’ve had several members of the Chamber of Commerce tell me that the Tea Party needs to stick to federal issues and leave local issues like this alone,” said Debbie Dooley, the head of the Atlanta Tea Party. “Well, that’s not going to happen.” Dooley had mounted a significant opposition to the plan, which she called “a done deal from the beginning,” and formed an unusual coalition among Tea Party activists, the Sierra Club, Common Cause, and other groups from across the political spectrum that opposed the deal for their own reasons.

At the public meeting before the commission voted four-to-one to approve the deal Tuesday night, commissioners heard discussion on “public private partnerships,” new local sales taxes, new taxes on hotels and apartments near the proposed site, and plenty of feedback from Dooley’s coalition and voters opposed to the deal, which was announced just two weeks earlier and did not include an environmental impact statement nor an economic impact statement.

“We’re spending millions of Cobb County taxpayer dollars on this deal and we’re going to take two weeks and ram it though?” said Patricia Hay, a local resident.

The only dissenting vote on the Cobb County Board of Commissioners was Democrat Lisa Cupid (quoted in italics):

"And I certainly can understand why the public has issue with their own tax dollars being committed for 30 years, binding this generation and the generation to follow. And how dare they have questions and want to be a part of this process. I believe this could have been a win-win for so many more people today, if we only took more time to get that win. So many people have asked us to wait.

"It frightens me, the number of threats I've received. If you wanted a 5-0 vote, you could have gotten it. It could have been easy. But I will not be bullied into sacrificing my commitment to the people who put me in this position."

Cobb Commissioner Lisa Cupid explains her decision to vote against the Braves' agreement. She was the lone dissenting vote at last night's Board of Commissioners meeting.

The Tea Partiers seemed to understand what was going on, while the rank-and-file Republicans (dubbed "Chamber of Commerce Republicans" in most of the Atlanta press) do exactly as they are told by real-estate developers.

As Sports Illustrated writes:

Such a move will make it the first of the 24 major league ballparks to open since 1989 to be replaced, and buck the trend of teams returning to urban centers. The proposed park is in the suburbs and closer to the geographic center of the team’s ticket-buying fan base, a much higher percentage of which happens to be white. US Census figures from 2010 put Fulton County at 44.5 percent white and 44.1 percent black, while Cobb County is 62.2 percent white and 25.0 percent black.

Hmmm. Is this about making it (supposedly) "safer" for the white fan-base to attend Braves games? The psychological factor of NOT having to drive into deepest, darkest Atlanta? Eric Brown of International Business Times says yes:

When the Atlanta Braves announced their intention to move from their urban Atlanta home to the suburbs of neighboring Cobb County, the team cited a “lack of consistent mass transit options.” Bafflingly, though, the team’s new location has no mass transit options at all. The real reason for the move? Separating the team's largely white fanbase from Atlanta's black residents.

And where is the money coming from? Guess.

On this one, I have to give it to the Tea Party. From the above link:

The lion’s share of the $672 million facility – a whopping $450 million – will be financed by the county, which will presumably pass that cost on to taxpayers, while the team will kick in just $200 million. By comparison, the current venue, which was originally built as Centennial Olympic Stadium with a capacity of 85,000, was financed by the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games — completely with private money — and then retrofitted for the Braves after the Summer Olympics ended.

The increased traffic alone is a thoroughly nightmarish prospect; I have written here before about how much Atlanta traffic freaks me out. I can't imagine it getting worse. (But of course, I realize it can always get worse.)

The new venue is at the intersection of Interstates 75 and 285, said to be a major traffic snarl, “the place so congested we Cobb Countians know to avoid if at all possible,” as the Journal-Constitution‘s Mark Bradley described it. The county has resisted the expansion of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) into its domain since its inception in 1971, so it’s not served by light rail, and while the team claims “significantly increased access to the site” via Home of the Braves, it offers no specifics on the matter.

And is this the beginning of a disturbing new urban trend?

In all, while the announcement of the new ballpark is good news for many suburban Braves fans, it’s unsettling for the industry as a whole. The Oakland A’s have spent the past decade battling for a new park to replace the dilapidated Coliseum, which they’ve called home since 1966, while the Tampa Bay Rays are hamstrung by the location of Tropicana Field. Both franchises would take Turner Field as their home in a heartbeat if it could be shipped to them.

Meanwhile, 13 current major league venues have been in service longer than Turner Field, seven of which opened from 1989-95. If some of those teams start getting restless and looking to build again, local taxpayers could be asked to replace the perfectly functional single-use ballparks that in turn had replaced less aesthetically pleasing multi-use facilities whose lifespans were much longer. Particularly as teams reap a new windfall with increased television revenues, that’s not going to go over well with fans.

More about the move:

Atlanta Braves move to suburbs approved (CNN)

Cobb County commissioners approve plan for Braves stadium (USA Today)

Braves: Moving to Cobb County in '17 (ESPN)

Cobb GOP chairman concerned about (those) people coming to Braves' games (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Cobb Commission Approves Braves Stadium Agreement (WABE radio - NPR)

Asylum Gallery

... is in Greenville's Far West End art district, also known as The Village.

The distinct neighborhood was once the largest mill village in the area, and I used to troll the place back in the late 80s, where the Salvation Army and several other super-thrifty, extremely-cheap thrift shops occupied an entire block in what appeared to be long-defunct furniture and appliance stores. I loved the environment and felt so sorry that the neighborhood (with its signature, cozy, compact mill-houses) appeared to be going belly-up, as Carolina textile businesses moved out of the county in droves. While the rejuvenation and gentrification of downtown Greenville happened, this area seemed to be left behind.

Lo and behold, the punk rockers, Zen masters and alternative artists have discovered the neighborhood (and inexpensive property), and it is now starting to thrive once again. I attended a craft fair in this delightful village a couple of weeks ago and was stunned to see all the cool peoples. And I was invited to view the work of Syprian Harvey in his very unique Asylum gallery. Totally visionary and exciting, Syprian comes to us by way of New Jersey, Germany, Singapore and Asheville.

I really enjoyed his gallery and his work, so have a look. (as always, you can click to enlarge)


~*~

GPATS likes to spend your money

On Monday, Greenville Occupiers attended the GPATS (Greenville-Pickens Area Transportation Study) meeting at County Square in Greenville, South Carolina. The only good thing I can say about it: they had donuts.




Ostensibly, we had come to support Joel Ann Chandler, the woman whose business (Mauldin Open Air Market) is currently under attack by the South Carolina Department of Transportation.

SC-DOT (under the auspices of the mysterious GPATS) is currently engaging in a naked land-grab scheme, attempting to steal a goodly section of her already-small parking lot, using Eminent Domain. The time and money spent on all these hearings (where Joel Ann always has supporters present) seems to be no object; they appear determined to go forward. And yet, they invariably table her specific concerns until the next meeting.

It seems they prefer to grab someone's property when the victim isn't sitting right there; it unnerves them to steal it while the public is looking.

Joel Ann has repeatedly attempted to find out what's going on and why they want her property so badly. Various movers and shakers are buying up the property around Mauldin High School (across from Joel Ann's market), and future subdivisions are in the works. Obviously, this whole land-grab scheme is crucial to these plans, and the sacred TURN LANE (which will shave off most of her parking lot) will be necessary for traffic management after the subdivisions are built. But right now, the extra lane is unnecessary. Thus, they are planning on taking significant areas of her property in PREPARATION for what the money-men have planned for the neighborhood. It is NOT about what's going on with the traffic-flow right now.

WHO, then, IN PARTICULAR, is agitating for the turn lane, and why won't they name themselves? And what connections might they have to the individuals sitting on the GPATS board?

In short, why is GPATS doing the dirty work of the real estate interests who expect to make money off the subdivisions? Do they serve the people, who love Joel Ann's market that has sold local produce to the community since forever (the land has been in her family since the 20s)... or do they serve the special interests (real estate, banks, lawyers, construction companies, property owners) that expect to make money off the future subdivisions?

Well, that is certainly an interesting question, in light of the meeting. I had never been to one of these, so it was educational.

GPATS has lots of projects going. LOTS. And some of them are fairly obvious to me. Fairforest Way, for instance, is the home of the local UPS hub. It is also the main road leading to Cavalier Drive, home of Christ Church Episcopal School, where the affluent kids of Greenville are educated. Thus, Fairforest Way rates a big road project. Our tax money is therefore paying to maintain a main thoroughfare for wealthy private-school kids and staggeringly-wealthy private-industry. How many of Greenville's citizens will this road actually serve? Is this ethical? And still another project will insure ICAR has good access roads, since of course we all know Clemson's partners in this endeavor, Microsoft and BMW, can't afford to build their own. (Link to GPATS pdf file detailing these projects)

At left: David Thomas, glad-handing the citizenry at the GPATS meeting.


Besides that, all of these roads-projects have hefty price-tags--millions of dollars earmarked--with little discussion. In fact, make that NO discussion. There was no itemized list of costs presented to this board, packed with Republicans and chaired by Head Teabagger, State Senator David Thomas, a shyster-politician who thoroughly believes in living off the beneficent state.

I thought Republicans didn't believe in squandering taxpayers' money? (No, I have never believed that either, but that is the okeydoke they put out.) So, how about an itemized list, detailing exactly where these millions of greenbacks are going, and an explanation of why THESE particular road-projects have been given precedent over others in poorer neighborhoods? Did they submit these projects to a public bidding process, to insure the cheapest bid? Who knows? GPATS works in secret... the board is composed of many elected officials, but how did they get appointed to GPATS? We counted about two dozen board-members, all white men, with one black woman and one white woman, period. (Now, who decided on THAT?) There are plenty of elected officials they could have asked to be on the GPATS who aren't white males, but perhaps they don't know any? How is one for selected for the GPATS board?

Who decided this board was the Alpha and Omega of the roads projects in Greenville County? How did this rather shadowy group of politicians get put in charge of millions of dollars, as well as the power to steal a private-business-owner's property? Most local citizens I have talked to, did not realize GPATS was calling the shots instead of the SC Department of Transportation.

Yes, this is the way politics in the South works, mysteriously and behind-the-scenes, by way of the Old Bubba Network.

And it sucks.

~*~

During the meeting, my Consigliere rose and made some rather forceful public comments about the demographics of the GPATS board not matching up with the demographics of Greenville County. He wasn't too popular.

We also listened to a rich woman's lawyer talk about saving her property from one such intrusive road-project, by installing a "modern roundabout," and we then watched a little video about the roundabouts, which keep traffic moving and save energy and so on. GPATS board member Jim Burns immediately said it was a good idea... and by my calculations (noting the map where this rich woman's property is), I figured out that Burns is her County Council representative, so he knows which side his bread is buttered on, as my grandmother used to say.

Can we trust this process, coming from a board with no electoral oversight? (Chaired by a man who famously says one thing and does another?)

I realized, this ongoing abuse of Joel Ann is merely the tip of the iceberg, and GPATS, responsible for allocating millions of dollars, has plenty to answer for.

Like, who are they? Who decides which projects get priority? How does one get on the GPATS board? Is there a bidding process? If not, how do they decide which companies get these plum contracts?

We can start there.

~*~

We will be discussing GPATS and other interesting local politics on my radio show Saturday morning, so stay tuned. WFIS radio, 9-10am, 1600AM and/or 94.9FM in upstate SC. To listen via your phone: 724-444-7444, Call ID: 112747#

We would especially like to hear from GPATS board members, as well as folks who have had dealings with them, up close and personal. TELL US ABOUT IT! Studio phone line: 864-228-WFIS which is also 864-228-9347.

And please support the Mauldin Open Air Market, where last year I met the legendary Country Earl! They have the very best, fresh, locally-grown peanuts in town.

And now it's up to the voters...

... and looking around Thornblade precinct, where I voted, that is a damned scary thought.

I was undoubtedly the poorest person there. Despite the fact that my apartment complex is part of the precinct and is mostly composed of minorities, there were ONLY whites at the polling place during the half-hour or so I was there. Hm, interesting.

Update: During FALL FOR GREENVILLE, I decided I would park at St Mary's. And to avoid getting towed, I hung an old brown rosary from my rear-view mirror. And miraculously, all the vicious road-rage incidents directed at my lefty bumpers stickers, magically STOPPED. TOTALLY. NOT A SINGLE ONE SINCE. South Carolina boy said it was a great idea, when I showed him. And he also agreed: my eye-catching jumble of bumper stickers was risky business in these parts... and I admit, I let the whole thing get out of hand: Another Mama for Obama (which I refuse to scrub off, even when I am mad at him); Vegetarianism is good for the planet; Peace now; Spay or neuter your cat; Grateful Dead; WNCW; etc etc. Some pretty radical stuff for DeMint country!

But the rosary trumps it ALL. The rosary is a TALISMAN to ward off right-wing thugs. Once again, the Blessed Mother protects me. As she always has!

Good Lord, why didn't I think of this before?!? -- clearly, I wasn't thinking.

Today at the polling place, though, the rosary almost didn't save me... my little bumper-sticker-festooned-Saturn was hemmed in by two different Mercedes--one black, one gray--with the black one bearing a giant, triumphant DeMint sticker. (Just perfect, I thought.) It took me some fancy maneuvering to inch my way out of my parking spot on Thornblade Boulevard, but I managed not to scrape their precious pricey vehicles. Yeesh.

First, I took the opportunity to do some last-minute windshield-leafletting for Tom Clements. (Yes, I was at least 100 feet from the parking lot; I know the rules!) One affluent, designer-clothes-clad woman pointedly declined my leaflet and snapped "Our minds are made up!" (speaking for her companion) and I have no doubts about that at all.

I got inside, where my conservative chiropractor friend was standing in line to vote. Being a friend, he is tolerant and good-natured, and joked that our votes would cancel each other's out. (The rest of the room, intolerant and NOT good-natured, glowered at me.) He also joked we should take our pictures voting and holding hands and post it on Facebook, to show democratic-system-goodwill and all that patriotic voter-stuff. (More glowering in my general direction; I could tell the rest of the room didn't believe in that shit AT ALL.)

And the Haley/DeMint stickers and signs, blinded me all the way back home.

Pertinent quote of the day:

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

HL Mencken

Stay tuned, sports fans. I'll try to be back by tonight and I will try not to sob TOO hard...

I don't even wanna talk about it

I hope everyone is having a great Monday. I am not, but as described on Saturday, not much I can say at this time.

I will say: If you live in a HOUSE, just be grateful that you do not have to deal with lunatics mere feet away from you. If you live in an apartment, you probably know exactly the sort of thing I refer to ... or close enough!

I have featured fabulous Helena Kallianiotes here before; I think it was last summer. It is time for a reprise!

This is series of clips from the film Five Easy Pieces (1970). Helena, Jack Nicholson's hitchhiker-from-hell, explains, well, what's wrong with everything.

I know exactly how she feels. Crap and more crap and more crap....

~*~

From Brooklyn to Bob Jones University...

I was attempting to psychoanalyze the tea-partiers, when someone helpfully Twittered this article from New York magazine, titled Clash of the Bearded Ones, Hipsters, Hasids, and the Williamsburg Street.

All I could say was: Whoa.

Simply change the names of the principle protagonists, and it could be right here in Greenville; instead of "Hasids"--insert "Bob Jones University"--and you have the ongoing Culture War of Greenville. It's utterly amazing how little difference there is between the two groups, right down to the clothes.

Fundamentalists have so much in common, regardless of the religion in question.

Like the Brooklynites, we also have the situation of the new arrivals... the oodles of mega-trendy folk moving into lofts converted from old textile and cotton mills. Who worked in those mills? The BJU people's kinfolks, that's who. As I also wrote here, it can be particularly galling to be called a redneck and priced out of the town you built, as well as the actual neighborhood you grew up in. This feud is also about class and class-mobility; global vs local, and a host of other issues.

As my regular readers know, I dislike the Bob Jones people, and I doubt I'd get on any better with the Hasids. But they were there before anyone else... and I think that does count for something. (We seem to believe that it does count when discussing Native Americans, but not when discussing fundamentalists who have lived in one locale for a long period, and made said locale the desirable location it has now become.)

From the article:

The hipster incursion began in the late nineties and was first written off as a fluke—some strangely dressed types poking around the abandoned warehouses and factories. The initial reaction, says Isaac Abraham, who has lived in the neighborhood for 58 years after emigrating from Austria (“Schwarzenegger country!”), was indifference. “Maybe the red carpet wasn’t out for them, but they came in masses and there was no objection from the community. Everybody went on with their daily lives.”

But after a while, says one Hasidic real-estate developer, “People started talking to the rabbis—‘Hey, something’s happening, all these young white people are moving in.’ ” When the Satmars [Brooklyn Hasids] realized that the Artisten—the Yiddish name they used for the bewildering newcomers—were there to stay, something like panic set in. Rabbis exhorted landlords not to rent to the Artisten, builders not to build for them. One flyer asked God to “please remove from upon us the plague of the artists, so that we shall not drown in evil waters, and so that they shall not come to our residence to ruin it.’’ Rabbi Zalman Leib Fulop announced that the Artisten were “a bitter decree from Heaven,” a biblical trial.

Yowza, it's the same language! And the same concept: a war with the Domestic Evildoers.

The hyper-conservative Bob Jones folks (and their fellow travelers) are especially fond of this Old Testament verse: "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins, and will heal their land."--II Chronicles 7:14.

They wear it on T-shirts and everything. If you were watching the various news networks' coverage of the recent tea-party rally in Washington D.C. (which they memorably held on the 15th anniversary of Timothy McVeigh's terrorist mass murder... aren't they just so cute with that shit?)*... then of course, you saw the t-shirt multiple times.

More from the article:

[In] 2007, came the bike lane, part of a citywide push to make streets more cycling-friendly. As bike lanes go, it wasn’t as plush as the ones springing up in Manhattan these days; it wasn’t even as nice as the one on neighboring Kent Avenue. But Bedford is Williamsburg’s main thoroughfare, and the pathway immediately found a thriving clientele. Morning to night, boys and girls whipped by Hasid minivans on their fixed-gears, hoods and hems flapping, thoughtful produce rattling in the baskets. It’s not that people didn’t bike down Bedford before, but the lane threw them into relief, marked them as a category.

The Satmars were incensed. Hasids are prohibited from looking at improperly dressed members of the opposite sex, and some complained that the women cycling through their neighborhood were an affront. “It’s a major issue, women passing through here in that dress code,” Simon Weiser, a Hasidic member of Community Board 1, told the Post. “Most Hasids have acclimated to living in New York,” says Sholom Deen, a semi-lapsed Hasid who, since 2003, has been publishing a blog called Hasidic Rebel. But each fresh bit of modernism—the Gretsch Building, the bus ads for Sex and the City—tends to touch off an uproar, he says, and the bikes were something new altogether: “It’s a direct intrusion.” The city, having spent $11,000 on the bike lane, appeared to encourage that intrusion, and the cyclists themselves seemed, if not improper, impudent. It felt like a seniority issue. “How long have you lived in the community that you now want to make the rules and totally ignore my opinion, when I’ve lived here for 50 years?” Abraham says. “You just got here. You either offer to help and do as the Romans do, or …”—and here Abraham goes into a spirited, if odd, impression of a spoiled young man—“ ‘I live here now. I lived here for ten years, and now I’m going to make rules for the entire community!’ ”

For a full year, the city seemed to ignore the hipster-Hasid war. Then, on December 1, 2009, came a sudden announcement. The Department of Transportation—under Janette Sadik-Khan, the bike-friendliest commissioner it’s ever had—was going to rip up “a small portion” of the lane between Flushing and Division Avenues, fourteen blocks in all. The deal to remove the lane is said to have been quietly brokered as far back as last April. Just about everyone’s assumption, including that of more than a few Hasids, is that Michael Bloomberg had needed the Satmars—who tend to vote enthusiastically and in a single block—in the upcoming election and that this was an easy bone to throw them.

On December 1, a crew of municipal workers descended on Bedford, sandblasting the lane and its stenciled biker figures off the asphalt. The next day, a group of three bike activists—Quinn Hechtropf, Katherine Piccochi, and a man we’ll call Ben—had an idea. That Friday night, around 3 a.m., they hit the street with aerosol cans and handmade stencils. According to Ben, more than a few Satmars saw them paint. “As they walked by, I made sure I said hello, explained to them that we’re not vandalizing the street, and asked if they wanted to help,” he says. “At first, they were a little standoffish, but a couple of guys had a sense of humor about it.” But by Saturday, fresh snow covered the group’s efforts, and the painters, encouraged by the adventure’s relative ease and cheered on by myriad bike blogs, decided to finish the job Sunday night.

Yes, a war over a bike lane. (You really need to read the whole thing!) I could easily see the same thing happening over on Wade Hampton Boulevard, which is why there will never be a bike lane over there.

And then, there is this side-account of some guys in a deli:

Right now, on a slow Thursday afternoon, the talk of the deli is Rachel, an 18-year-old Hasidic girl who “went off”—the local term for breaking with tradition.

“She got a huge tattoo,” reports Baruch Herzfeld to a gangly copper-haired cook in full beard and payess.

“No way,” says the cook, ecstatic. “No. Way.”

“Seriously. She shows it if you ask, too. Right here”—Herzfeld points at his thigh. “So fucking hot.”

The cook just grins.

I think this is what strikes abject fear into the hearts of all fundamentalists, and the author of the New York piece, Michael Idov, goes straight for it. I am thinking of that old hippie/biker bumper sticker: We have come for your daughters. Yes, this is the heart of it, and Idov knows it:

Herzfeld grabs his iPhone and opens Facebook, searching for photos of Rachel. The Hasidic Facebook is its own phenomenon, a parallel universe where the prim girls you see on the street in turban hats and snub-nosed forties shoes post their bikini snapshots and glamorously lit studio pictures. Herzfeld enthusiastically scrolls through his four-figure friend list, picking out the hotties for us to look at. “Esther. Hot girl. Her father is super-religious. The interesting part is how many friends they have. Look: 273 friends. Most of them are Hasidic guys.”

...

It is the undercurrent of thwarted lust beneath the Satmars’ pious exterior that’s causing the tension with the Artisten, Herzfeld believes (“Orthodox is you don’t want to look at a girl in a bathing suit. Ultra-Orthodox is you want to close down a beach”). And it’s also what will bring about the sect’s downfall, he says.

Herzfeld is convinced there’s a massive generational split within the Hasidic community...

And for the record, I believe this is true of Bob Jones University also. I've lived here for 22 years, and I've heard a lot of gossip; some of the kids can't wait to break loose, and don't waste any time doing it.

The internal inconsistencies certainly don't help, such as telling the faithful that Catholicism is evil, then paying the Church around a million dollars to get your son a Ph.D. from Notre Dame (?)... or claiming that Mormonism is an evil false gospel, all whilst backing a Mormon for president (?). Bob Jones (like the two Rabbis Teitelbaum of the Brooklyn Hasids) has one standard for himself, and another for the faithful. Very cultish, but seemingly acceptable to the cult. Go figure. One hopes that after awhile, they will wise up.

In any event, I am surrounded by conservatives, and I can feel their hostility towards the hip, young newcomers. I can also feel the derision of the newcomers, as they take for granted the beauty and good manners of the upstate, carefully crafted and cared for by the same people they despise.

Stay tuned, sports fans.




~*~


* Another internal inconsistency: we have tea-partiers claiming to be for law and order (or what Abbie Hoffman used to call Lawn Order), and openly celebrating a mass-murdering terrorist of 168 people. I ask you, would lefties be allowed to say "whoops!" and wink at the camera in the case of such a "coincidence"? Ha, not hardly. Why didn't they change the day of the rally? Obviously, this was intentional. Thank God, Bill Clinton didn't hold back.

DEAD AIR supports Cecil Bothwell!

Cecil Bothwell, atheist elected to Asheville City Council. Photo by sweetashvegas.




The difference between here and Asheville is: We could NEVER elect an atheist candidate. The national news-blogs reporting, "An openly atheist candidate has actually been elected to office, and in Asheville, North Carolina, of all places," (italics mine) let us know that these national writers don't know Asheville; it is a very liberal area, the counterpoint to ultra-conservative Greenville. They are like yin and yang, but parts of a whole. We all watch the same TV stations and listen to the same radio stations.

The hoopla over atheist Cecil Bothwell (well-known in the area) being elected to City Council, has gone viral, covered by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC last night. What the national news-media keeps missing is what this represents.

Last week, quoting JG Ballard, I talked about the colonizing of the inner-cities by the affluent. The locals who grew up here resent this phenomenon, as well they should. What does it mean to be priced out of the neighborhood you grew up in? What does it mean to have tourists all over your hometown, who sneer at you as if you don't belong and haughtily classify you as a redneck? REDNECKS BUILT THIS PLACE, is the overriding sentiment. The Carolina freak-out over Bothwell is much bigger than Bothwell, dramatizing locals' fears of "outsiders" coming in and transforming the values of Western North Carolina.

Note: I am not saying that Bothwell is an outsider--I don't actually know where he is from. (I'm from Ohio myself; not criticizing outsiders, she quickly clarified!) I am saying that he comports himself like an educated person, blogs about culture, has published books, etc. He is the New South, bringing in gonzo, scary ideas like atheism and frightening the horses.

The tension between these two forces is formidable. But it isn't as simple as Old vs New; it is also class-based, and represents local anxieties about increasing gentrification and residential displacement. People like Bothwell get caught in the fallout.

And then, of course, there is the issue of how atheists are systematically shit on, here in the Heartland. I'm sure atheism is utterly passe on the coasts and in the big cities. But not in the south; at least, not in this neck of the woods. It is enough to get you fired (if three people have to go, the atheist will get the sack) and enough to keep you unemployed, if you are honest about it. As I said here, "Which church do you go to?" is routinely (and inappropriately) asked of politicians running for office. And no way Cecil Bothwell could get elected here in Bob Jones University-land.

The discriminatory idea that an atheist isn't as morally upright as a believer, ANY believer, is even covered in North Carolina's constitution:

Opponents of Cecil Bothwell are seizing on that law to argue he should not be seated as a City Council member today, even though federal courts have ruled religious tests for public office are unlawful under the U.S. Constitution.

Voters elected the writer and builder to the council last month.

“I'm not saying that Cecil Bothwell is not a good man, but if he's an atheist, he's not eligible to serve in public office, according to the state constitution,” said H.K. Edgerton, a former Asheville NAACP president.

Article 6, section 8 of the state constitution says: “The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.”

Rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution trump the restriction in the state constitution, said Bob Orr, executive director of the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law.

“I think there's any number of federal cases that would view this as an imposition of a religious qualification and violate separation of church and state,” said Orr, a former state Supreme Court justice.

In 1961, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Maryland's requirement for officials to declare belief in God violated the freedom of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Additionally, Article VI of the U.S. Constitution says: “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

And so, the conflict is evident--national values or North Carolina values? (I'm proud to say that atheists are now eligible to run for any office in South Carolina, thanks to Herb Silverman.)

Of course, Bothwell's atheism should not even be an issue.

I hope you will join me in supporting Cecil Bothwell's right to serve the voters, as he was properly elected to do.

We won't give pause until the blood is flowing

Photo of the greatest writer and philosopher of the 20th century, JG Ballard, from The Northern Light.







I have been trying to articulate what I dislike about mass-market holidays. In particular, the mass market holiday that Christmas has become.

And I find myself going to my late guru to explain; may his soul rest in peace. I miss him like he was my own father. Maybe he was, in a way.

From V. Vale's quite invaluable J.G. Ballard: Conversations, some excerpts that say it far better than I can:

People use mental formulas that they've learned from TV. Even in ordinary conversation, if you're talking to the mechanic at the garage about whether you need new tires for your car, you and he probably talk in a way that his equivalent thirty years ago would never have done. You use--not catch phrases, but verbal formulas. Suddenly you realize you're hearing echoes of some public-information, accident-prevention commercial. It's uncanny.

[...] What's interesting [about Reality TV shows like Big Brother] is that almost nothing happens. There's a certain amount of bitching and gossip and sitting around the supper table talking in a sort of half-hearted way, but there's no drama. Nonetheless, the audiences are riveted. And they're riveted by very similar programs where TV producers put people on desert islands and see how they survive; a series called Survivor did just that. I think this reflects a tremendous hunger among people for "reality"--for ordinary reality. It's very difficult to find the "real," because the environment is totally manufactured.

Even one's own home is a kind of anthology of advertisers, manufacturers, motifs, and presentation techniques. There's nothing "natural" about one's home these days. The furnishings, the fabrics, the furniture, the appliances, the TV, and all the electronic equipment--we're living inside commercials. I think people realize this, and they're desperate for reality, which partly explains the surge in popularity of "adventure" holidays. People think that by living on some mountainside in a tent and being frozen to death by freezing rain, they're somehow discovering reality, but of course that's just another fiction dreamed up by a TV producer. And there's no escape.

Holidays like Halloween and Christmas are spectacles that people engage in, because they are on TV. Working retail, I consider a certain type of existential-shopping (wherein people don't really know what they are "looking" for) part of this Ballardian phenomenon.

There are so many fabulous quotes in this book, I will be blogging lots of them. For instance, about the disparity between rich and poor:

In England [this conversation was recorded in 2003], we're getting unprecedented disparities of wealth. The people who run our biggest corporations have begun to affect life in London primarily by buying up property, and the old middle class (doctors, civil servants, teachers, salaried professionals) can no longer afford to live in central London. Now there are whole areas of central London given over to the rich. I've often thought that in due course all these very rich financiers are going to leave very large sums of money to their children. Then you'll get a sort of New Leisure Class who never work, but have huge spending power--like the ancien regime in France. Supposedly, the same thing is happening in Manhattan: the middle class has been forced out...

V. Vale replies that the same thing is happening in San Francisco; New York and San Francisco are the two most expensive cities in the USA. I would add that it's even true in lil ole Greenville; the 'centers' of towns/cities are now priced out of range for the actual natives of those towns/cities. Most of the people moving into the new high-priced condos in downtown Greenville, for instance, come from someplace else, often from Europe or the coasts. The rich colonizing the cities and leaving the outlying suburbs to the poor and the rabble, is the exact reverse of what happened in the 60s, when the rich moved to the suburbs and left the inner-cities to rot. Now that they crave authenticity, they have moved back to cities in droves. However, they still aren't getting the authenticity they crave, since the only people who can afford to live in cities are rich, affluent people who are all just like them.

In the cities, a bizarre new class-based uniformity has taken hold, while in my suburban apartment building, every race and age and nationality and economic status is well-represented.

Authenticity has been priced out of the market.

Speaking of which, here is Ballard on the future of sex:

[The] time is going to come when no young woman will regard penetrative penis-and-vagina sex as real sex, because it isn't deviant enough to be considered "real sex." These days, magazines for teenagers sold openly on newsstands have headlines like, "Interested in S&M sex? Junior Cosmo explains all you need to know." And this is a magazine that's going to be bought and read by 14-year-olds. The period of conventional, penetrative, penis/vagina sex will be over by the time you're about 15, and then you'll move into the area of conceptualized sex, S&M, and whatever--and that's what will be regarded as real sex. To me, this seems like a daunting thought.

Ballard on the future of reading:

People don't use libraries as much as they used to. One thing I miss terribly--I don't know if the same thing applied in America, but over here in the Forties and Fifties when I first came to England, what I loved were the second-hand bookshops. Every small town had a second-hand bookshop, which was constantly being stocked up... when someone died, the family took their books to the second-hand bookshop and got sixpence each for them. There were a lot of unserious materials, popular novels and the like...but there were a lot of very serious books. You know, one serious collector in a lifetime could produce enough books to keep a second-hand bookstore open for a year.

I did most of my reading in second-hand bookshops. I remember when I was living in London somewhere I used a local one. Also, serendipity came into it [...] You made accidental discoveries all the time. And this sort of refreshed one. You were constantly being surprised, constantly making discoveries. All this is gone now, of course. There can't be more than a half a dozen used bookshops in the whole of West London, if any.

What we've got now is a new kind of literacy. We've got people who are expert at reading the labels on products, expert at reading instructional manuals that come with a new kind of vacuum cleaner, or a computer or what have you. They're expert at that kind of reading, but not at anything else. Not with a more traditional book.

I don't know if the internet has affected that. I have very high hopes for the internet, which I think could be the sort of--if we're entering a New Dark Age, the internet could help to keep the lights on!

I'll be revisiting these Conversations often, which Ballard would be pleased to know, I found by browsing bookstores in the serendipitous manner he has described so well.

I miss you, man.

~*~

Ballard would have understood this song/video, which is where we get today's blog-post title. Caution, may trigger, may offend, watch out, yada yada.

(Not for the faint of heart or the oversensitive. Really.)

Vicarious - Tool



Note: Well, damn, there is some argument over exactly the lyrics I was going to quote. I always heard:

We all feed on tragedy
It's the virtue of empire

Other listeners report: "It's the virtual vampire," and still others, "like blood to a vampire." (Does anyone know the official lyrics?)

I guess you can still understand the concept, though.

Put another way:

Blue Jello Daze: A Back-to-School story of the suburbs

We wanted our young Delusional Precious to have the very best education in the county, although we could not afford to send her to a private school. Besides that, we didn't really think private schools were a good idea from an egalitarian point of view. So, we sent her to the"best" school in the county, which of course, turned out to be the "richest" of the public schools. The volunteer ratios were nearly 2-1; unemployed moms to students.

My first lesson in the new school was what this actually meant.

During test week on the West side (poor side) of Greenville County, we got a flier telling us the kids would be taking all of the official, federal standardized tests. Okay, that's nice. Typically, I didn't think much of it and just made sure Delusional Precious (herein referred to as DP) got a good night's sleep. However, in the days after testing was over, DP complained that the old lunchroom where the tests were taken (in a building that has since been condemned, BTW) was by turns drafty and too-hot. South Carolina Autumn sunlight (blinding) was shining right in her eyes at one point, and she couldn't concentrate. At another juncture, she had to pee, and there wasn't enough time alotted. She apologized for the tests, and said she knew she had not done her best.

And then, DP was tested at her NEW SCHOOL; the East side (rich) school with air conditioning, tinted windows and carpeting. No sunlight in the eyes there, no sirree Bob! In fact, between each test, there were copious bathroom breaks and stretching exercises, supervised and conducted by legions of stay-at-home moms. They did rousing cheers, as in sports ("WE'RE #1!") and practically engaged in Cultural Revolution-style calisthenics, right there at their desks. The kids were also plied with healthy snacks and juices between the tests, to keep their blood-sugar levels high. (Who paid for all this? Who do you think? The legions of volunteers, of course.) They were STOKED, and yeah, their tests scores were phenomenal. DP's scores were about 20 points higher. I was astounded!

I joked to people that my kid's IQ had been raised one standard deviation just by moving to the East side.

I should have known, this meant LOTS MORE WORK for me, but I really hadn't thought it through. But after awhile, I was carting her everywhere for all kinds of specialized activities. I was footing the bill for all manner of pricey field trips; some of which I could not afford (i.e. trips to Quebec) and she had to sit out. We were out of our league, financially, but I hoped this meant she was getting a better education.

The assigned school projects were enormous. A mere child could never execute stuff so intricate; they seemed to require people with engineering or graphic-design degrees. In addition, it seemed understood that the parents would certainly chip in... or maybe do the whole thing. Certainly, working mothers could never find the time to work on these gargantuan undertakings.

I found reasonable ways to cut time-expenditures on these projects, but discovered that this would be judged (by teachers) as "cutting corners" and would negatively influence DP's grade. The projects had to LOOK like they had been duly fussed over, and some seemed worthy of the Martha Stewart Living Christmas edition. When I visited the school to drop off the (increasingly huge) projects, I would see what the other parents had done. DP and I would exchange dumbfounded looks: Jesus H Christ. I would never be upset with her for whatever grades she was given on these things--realizing that a good grade in such a situation was simply impossible to obtain. But of course, she wanted the good grades too, and felt that she was being cheated and unfairly penalized (which she was) since her mother could not take whole days off work to execute these complicated, long-ass projects.

I realized, once and for all, that we had made a big mistake on the day I call Blue Jello Day. It was my moment of truth. We do not belong here. I realized, moving to this side of town for the sake of a better education, was a huge error. What were we thinking?

It was the Blue Jello.

The project was a Native American project. The kids picked a tribe and made something that was emblematic of that tribe. I was relieved that this was an easy one. I actually duplicated something I had done as a child: a warrior's necklace. I regret to say I now forget the tribe(s), but most tribal warriors wore these, rather as charm bracelets are worn in the present day. They collected pieces of arrowheads, colorful beads, animal bones, shells, etc and displayed them, as military medals or girl scout badges might be displayed. So, we made one based on a photo in Encyclopedia Brittanica, and I was happy with it. I figured it might at least get a B.

On this auspicious day, there was MORE THAN ONE PROJECT DUE (do you believe?), so there I am, hauling in some humongous hand-made poster about the habitat of the North American Lynx on the same day I brought in the necklace.

And, taking up about half the room, was an "Indian village"--on what seemed to be a very large, burlap-covered ping-pong table. There were little teepees and little people. PEOPLE. They were all dressed appropriately, I noticed. Little tiny braids on the little tiny people. Little tiny papooses on the backs of the little tiny wooden women... and...

There it was. In the middle of the village, well, what do you suppose was there? What WAS in the middle, usually? Historical accuracy! Yes, a POND. A very nice POND was etched out of the burlap, and it was .... made of blue jello.

Stunned, I actually reached out and touched the jello. My suburban Epiphany!

What the fuck am I doing here?!?

I pointed at the blue jello, and attempted to say something to Delusional Precious. Speechless. She looked at it and rolled her eyes. Even though she was only in the 5th or 6th grade, she exclaimed "Shit!" and I did not chastise her, because she had correctly spoken my thoughts aloud.

Yeah, shit!

Did the mom come and set this whole thing up IN THE CLASS? Well, I guess she had to, huh? How else could she get all the little people lined up just so? She must have brought the blue jello in some tupperware and dished it out, after carefully placing the burlap and teepees and tiny wooden Indians and teensy stuffed buffaloes (really) and teensy arrows made of painted toothpicks all sticking out of the miniature stuffed buffalo. I just stared, and as I often do, I wondered what JG Ballard would say.

Okay, that's it. I can NOT compete with this.

And it was then that I stopped trying to. I did not worry that my kid could not keep up with these people. I realized, well, we made a mistake, but we will attempt to deal. And we dealt with it pretty badly, actually, and things did not always go as planned. But after I saw the Blue Jello, I had a point of reference.

Every year, when I hear all the moms worry aloud about their kids going back to school, I think of my Blue Jello Daze. And frankly? I would not repeat those years for ANYTHING.

My love, good thoughts and novenas are with all of you feminist, progressive moms, as you attempt to navigate this territory, keep your sanity, and yet do the right thing for your babies.

Namaste, and know that I love you. :)

Your redneck-hippie guide to the PGA Tour!

Welcome to the tournament! These trailers are all over the place. Only Budweiser is more ubiquitous.

~*~

Yes, we provide only the very best guides to American culture here at DEAD AIR!

My apartment complex is about 20 feet from Thornblade, one of the premier golf courses in the south. As stated in this space last year, it is time for the annual invasion of the golfers. Of course, I speak of the BMW Charity Pro-Am Golf Tournament. It's some major hoopla, and people flock here from all 50 states and abroad. The celebrities in this year's tournament include Terry O'Quinn, Dennis Quaid and Greg Kinnear.

Since the Golf Channel is parked at one of my apartment complex exit-gates, I was able to stroll right through, unnoticed and undisturbed... until one over-eager security guy sternly reminded me not to walk on the green. (Dude, I wouldn't dream of it.) The golf clubs, cars (BMW provides all the shiny new "courtesy vehicles" for the event) and assorted sports accoutrements simply reek with money... in fact, the whole place radiates cash, even more than it usually does. Ordinarily, someone like me could not afford to be anywhere near the premises, except as a caddy. But Mr Daisy and I walk through this neighborhood all the time, and know the intricate twisty-turns far better than the yearly visitors. (Not to mention the fact that their golf balls hit my spare-room window every day during golf season.)

Unfortunately, I don't know from golf, so I can't explain any of these photos on a sportsman's level. But I can certainly explain them on a redneck-hippie level!

~*~

The people lined up on Thornblade Boulevard to watch this shot, were whispering intently and staying very still. I figured this meant something important was happening, so I took a photo of it.

You can't see the golf ball, but it's real close!


~*~





Practice range at Thornblade... our apartment complex is right beyond the line of trees, mere feet away. We live at the very edge. The trees are very nice, and we can usually pretend it's a park when the golfing population is low. ;)





~*~


















An unsuspecting geese family flees, confused and wondering what all these mega-rich people are doing in their habitat.

I know exactly how they feel.






~*~

And more photos below...

Odds and Sods - the smashing edition

From my Upstate SC photoset on Flickr.







West Asheville co-op faces eviction; calls community meeting
by Brian Postelle, Mountain Xpress
April 6, 2009

The Haywood Road Market, which has a history of financial struggles, now might have to leave its location of six years.

April DeLac, president of the co-op’s board, said the market received an eviction notice from Bledsoe Building owners West Asheville Development in late March after the market had been late on paying February’s rent.

DeLac noted that the co-op’s money woes stretch back further than two months.

“We’ve been a struggling co-op for a long time,” she said. “There’s been financial issues almost the entire history.”

Those financial issues include not only late rent payments but also a series of personal and business loans extended over the years to try to help the market reach a sustainable level, says WAD partner and West End Bakery co-owner Krista Stearns.

“This has been years in coming,” Stearns said. “And it was a very hard decision to make.”

Stearns’ husband Lewis Lankford, also a member of WAD, said the co-op’s poor payment history led to the decision not to renew the market’s lease in January, switching to a month-to-month status, and eventually to the eviction notice, which is effective the end of May.

But Lankford, himself a founding board member of the co-op, said that empty shelves and declining business also gave a dim forecast of the market’s future.

“The decision was reinforced by going in and seeing the condition of the store,” he said. “It didn’t have the feel of anything except something that was going away.”

For DeLac, however, there are still options on the table (granted, those options include moving or closing shop for good). The co-op will hold a member’s meeting — with the public invited — on Tuesday, April 21, at 6:30 p.m. at the Bledsoe Building to try to figure out the next step.

Thinking fondly back to my own co-op days; I wish you the best of luck for the continuing success of your endeavor.

I now live in a community with no food co-op, and feel the lack significantly. Starting a food co-op in this area proved to be an impossibility, but at least I got to meet cool folks like Ted Christian in the process.

Nonetheless, it is one of those things I didn't get accomplished, and any mention of co-op failure and/or disinterest, just plain makes me sad. :(

~*~

Lately, Cripchick has been inspired to write more, and her poetry soars through the stratosphere, way into heavenly terrain. She is very gifted. Check out her wonderful poetry!

Also, you might want to visit the First Asian Women's Carnival!

New to my blogroll is YouTomb--an extremely-welcome free-speech project tracking one of the most maddening modern phenomena of Blogdonia (often fussed about in extremis here at DEAD AIR), the removal of videos from YouTube:

YouTomb is a research project by MIT Free Culture that tracks videos taken down from YouTube for alleged copyright violation.

More specifically, YouTomb continually monitors the most popular videos on YouTube for copyright-related takedowns. Any information available in the metadata is retained, including who issued the complaint and how long the video was up before takedown. The goal of the project is to identify how YouTube recognizes potential copyright violations as well as to aggregate mistakes made by the algorithm.

This is one of those hypnotic websites, so be careful. You can get lost in data over there.


Count me in as one who adored the First Lady's fabulous J Crew cardigan, worn during her trip to London this past week. (photo at left)

She looked SMASHING (as British broadcasting legend David Frost always enthused about his favorite female guests).

Not at all surprising that the press is glued to her every fashion move. She is beautiful and radiant.

And when she spoke proudly of her working class roots, she made me proud, too.

Blackwell update

It's still pretty hot around here, and black communities and neighborhoods in northeastern Georgia (specifically Hart County), as well as in upstate South Carolina, are under some heavy police surveillance right now.

Although Jimmy Lee Blackwell's eye was removed here in Greenville (largest city closest to Hartwell, GA), the Greenville News did not cover the story and still hasn't. I am really shocked by this. Other local SC newspapers in Anderson and Spartanburg (technically further away from Hartwell, and smaller than Greenville) have covered the story carefully.

This tells me everything I have ever written here about the Greenville News is dead-on accurate, and no exaggeration. The next time I meet one of their writers at some rally or event, I will have a VERY GOOD EXAMPLE to present to them, about why I think the Greenville News is biased. (Being journalists, they always demand examples, okay, here it is!)

And because the Greenville News, newspaper for the largest metro area in the region, is asleep at the switch, guess where lots of people have had to go for their news? (WELCOME EVERYBODY!) I've had hundreds of hits on the Blackwell story from local people around Georgia and South Carolina. Blogdonia gets it done! I'm very proud I was able to help while the "professionals" are busy toting water for (and pacifying) the powers-that-be. This is still another example of the mainstream media with their thumbs up their proverbial asses. Renee, of Womanist Musings, took the story national, and I am so grateful to her for covering it. The days of police brutality happening in a vacuum are LONG GONE, and praise God for that.

If you've read comments on the previous thread, you know the potential for community violence is there--emotions and temperaments are running especially high. (I even had some weird Baptist troll show up.) There are people emailing me who think it is "irresponsible" that I even wrote the story, if you can believe it. (They probably LIKE the Greenville News.)

Local television has been covering the story, even if the Greenville News won't:

Hundreds Rally Over Hartwell Man's Beating
Man Loses Eye Due To Alleged Police Abuse

UPDATED: 3:10 pm EST February 21, 2009

HARTWELL, Ga. -- Hundreds of people gathered Friday night in Hartwell, Ga., community to express outrage over an incident that left a man severely injured after an altercation with a police officer.

The rally was held Friday evening at the Flat Rock CME Church on Cokesbury Highway in Hartwell.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has launched an inquiry into the altercation between a Hartwell police officer and a Hartwell resident.

According to police, Jimmy Lee Blackwell, 51, of Savannah Street in Hartwell, refused to comply when Officer Robert Mitchell, 26, asked him for identification around 1:30 a.m. on Feb. 16.

Blackwell was transported to Hart County Hospital with severe head injuries and later was transferred to Greenville Memorial Hospital. His left eye was removed.

Neighbors said the officer in the case went too far.

"We're not here for violence. We're here for answers,” Deliverance Outreach Ministries Rev. Roderick Hughey said. "We're here to let you know this will not be tolerated. It's not a white thing, it's not a black thing."

Other cases of alleged police misconduct cases were on the agenda as well as strategies for preventing future incidences.

Hartwell Police Chief Cecil Reno has said that he cannot comment on the case because of the ongoing investigation, but requested the Georgia Bureau of Investigation inquiry.

Because of the investigation, no one with the city -- including the police chief -- have been able to talk about the case but, a city councilman did speak to the crowd.

"On this particular case, and anything to do with this particular case, as a city official it would be irresponsible for me to answer those questions at this time," Councilman Tracy Hicks said.

Many people at the meeting said that they weren’t shocked by the abuse allegations. People told WYFF News 4 that there has been misconduct in the past.

People also donated money to pay for Blackwell’s medical expenses.

The officer involved in the case has been placed on administrative leave without pay.

Blackwell, a father of five, is staying with relatives and is doing better, family said.

Again, I want this story to get out, not fade away into oblivion without any justice for Blackwell and his family, without any national awareness. If you have a blog or website or Facebook account, anything, consider at least mentioning this event.

Shine the bright light on the shadows.

SC Bill would increase premiums on obese workers

At left: In case you needed any more proof that R. Crumb could predict the future. (from Zap Comix, several eons ago.)



In our sordid state news today:


SC Bill would increase premiums on obese workers
The Associated Press • February 10, 2009

COLUMBIA — Obese public employees would have to pay an extra $25 monthly for their state health insurance under a bill up for debate in South Carolina.

The measure sponsored by GOP Sen. Greg Ryberg of Aiken is on the agenda Tuesday in a Senate subcommittee. It would tie the surcharge to employees' body-mass index, a weight and height measurement.

The proposal follows a vote last August to increase health insurance premiums of public workers who smoke. The smoking surcharge is set to take effect Jan. 1, 2010. It was approved by a five-member board that oversees the state budget.

Smokers called it an unfair increase, since smoking isn't the only bad habit that increases health care costs.

South Carolina has among the nation's highest rates of obesity and diabetes.

As always, South Carolina loves to be first in all things. You've undoubtedly noticed by now!

~*~

More from recent Blogdonia excursions:

Lauren's post on class and feminism, titled Context.

Our state bird is disappearing. From TreeHugger: Is It Still a Carolina Wren If It No Longer Calls Carolina Home?

Attention local folks! (Upstate SC and Western NC) Please help save the Burton Street neighborhood, currently in the corporate cross-hairs as bureaucrats haggle over how best to expand I-26 in Asheville. Mountain Xpress has been doing a bang-up job of covering the proposed "Downtown Master Plan" for Asheville. (((applause for excellent work)))

Please, please, please do not ruin Asheville!

And finally...

Antiprincess's precious littlest patriarch, Wolfgang! Beware adorable baby picture!!! YOU COULD DIE FROM THE CUTE! (((makes gurgly grandma noises)))