Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Things Are Not As They Seem
Philadelphia is rapidly earning a reputation, as far as I’m concerned, as a place where few things are as they seem.
This is a real pity, because the people I have met from Philadelphia, impress me as a “genuine” sort of folk. You know where you stand with them. And yet, the people who actually run things in Philadelphia, I must tentatively conclude, are a wholly different sort of people. First we have the kindly old gentleman with the cheesesteak sandwich shop, Geno’s, being muscled around by City Hall because his placard supposedly violates the city’s anti-discrimination laws. It says, “This is AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH.” An assertion, and a request. Well, the assertion seems to be spot-on; last I checked, Philadelphia was within America. As for the request, this seems to just make sense. If I’m taking your order, and you want to bitch and moan and scream if/when I get your order wrong, and I’m mono-lingual, maybe you should just order it in my language.
The city says we can’t have retail establishments deciding what language is to be spoken when said retail establishments take orders. Goodness gracious, poor Geno’s. Who is to decide how many languages are to be in effect, and thus, how many translators the restaurant is to hire?
Well, as I commented a week or so after my original comments last month, there is a distinctly different reason why the city might be picking on the Geno’s sandwich shop, and it doesn’t have a lot to do with languages. Quoth the Coalition of the Swilling, narrating their own trip to Philadelphia to sample the fare of the now-much-talked-about sandwich shop:
And then it struck me. Right in front of me was the real reason why the “concerned” folks in Philly are upset with Geno’s. It really has nothing to do with the “Speak English When You Order Sign”, though I’m sure they see that as another proof of the owner’s dementia. No, my friends, the real reason Geno’s is in trouble with the City of Brotherly Love is right there on his Hummer…
The Free Mumia crowd has declared war, as Officer Faulkner’s picture is everywhere you look at Geno’s, as are window case after window case that are filled with police badges from around the country and around the world, from Anoka County, Minnesota to Australia.
Now admittedly, this is not proof. Perhaps it’s news to the Philadelphia city council, just as much to anyone else, that there’s an homage to Officer Faulkner in the display case at Geno’s…as well as on the Hummer operated by Geno’s. Perhaps, just perhaps, this really is all about civil rights. The Constitutional right, which the Founding Fathers held sacrosanct, to come over to this country and jibber-jabber away in whatever nonsensical dialect suits your fancy, and expect everybody from post office clerks, to pharmacists, to hot dog vendors, to sandwich shop owners to work through correctly so they can nail your bagfuls of consonants and vowels right the first time out of the chute. Yes, surely, that’s what America is all about…or it should be. Makes perfect sense to me.
In a pig’s eye.
Yeah you’re goddam right I’m being sarcastic. Coalition’s theory makes perfect sense to me.
Of course I could be wrong. But here comes another example of craven duplicity on the part of city hall. The Cradle of Liberty Council, which provides scouting services to 75,000 boy scouts, 40,000 of whom reside within the city limits of Philadelphia, has been served with papers that their rent-free occupation of headquarters is about to come to an end.
The city of Philadelphia told the third largest Boy Scout Council in the nation to either stop discriminating against gays or their free ride will come to an end.
City Solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr. wrote a letter to the Cradle of Liberty Council saying their discriminatory policies, which do not allow gays to be troop leaders, violate city policy and law. If they do not change they could either be evicted from its publicly owned headquarters in the city or made to pay rent.
This AP Wire story, taken from information in the Philadelphia Inquirer, provides a little bit of background on the property from which the Boy Scouts are being ejected.
The organization has made its headquarters on a half-acre property in the upscale Philadelphia Art Museum area since 1928, when City Council voted to allow the Philadelphia Boy Scouts to use the property rent-free “in perpetuity.” Despite paying no rent, the scouts pay for the upkeep of the building.
Well now, I’m sure this is on the up-and-up. Government is all about non-discrimination, or should be all about that anyway, since it represents all citizens. Can’t have government discriminating, or tolerating someone else who does. It just makes sense that the city government should draconically impose notions of membership standards upon a private organization, whom the Supreme Court has ruled has a right to those membership standards. If city governments aren’t all about forcing private organizations to operate in the way those city governments should think the private organizations should operate, why, I don’t know what else those city governments should be doing. It seems ridiculous to suppose a city government should focus efforts more along the lines of, say, parking enforcement, fines for littering, getting the garbage picked up on time, making the traffic lights work the way they should, or any of that other boring stuff.
Well yeah, that does seem to be such a simple story.
Until you go to the Inquirer story from which the AP took the information, and read the last two paragraphs.
Real estate prices have boomed in the burgeoning neighborhoods along the Parkway in Center City.
Across the wide avenue from the Boy Scouts, a 47-story condo tower is planned at the site of the Best Western Center City Motel at 22d and Spring Garden Streets.
Awww…lookee here, turns out when you cut through all the crap, it’s all about the bling-bling.
Come to think of it, from whence came this supposition that the city council is acting on high-minded, utopian ideals in busting the Boy Scouts? Why are we to think that’s what gets this ball rolling? Why are we to assume that the Boy Scouts operate from pure cynicism and pragmatism, and those who stand opposed to them, operate from pure altruism? That’s just what’s printed on the paperwork, and what the Boy Scout Busters say they’re doing when people come asking.
I call shenanigans. There’s something terribly bigoted about some of this hateful invective flung around about Boy Scouts. Try this on for size…just try it. Suppose, just take this as a hypothetical, that from sea to shining sea, we all wake up one morning, and resolve to everlastingly support the Boy Scouts and their antiquated membership policies. Tighty-righties and lefty-loosies. Not adopt the Boy Scouts’ moral sensibilities as our own, mind you…just resolve to respect the Boy Scouts and their intrinsic membership requirements. All actions against them are dropped, and the Boy Scouts keep their facilities guarantees “in perpetuity” — as originally promised — not only in Philadelphia, but all over the world. The Boy Scouts continue to do what some misguided souls call “discriminating” and suffer zero, zilch, zip, nada repercussions for doing so. From anyone. Anywhere.
Who suffers?
Nobody can answer that question. Not satisfactorily.
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