Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Birmingham Politics

(a long post, but an hilarious news conference is below)

often times, when discussing birmingham politics, i look like this dude above (for whatever reason, this link refuses to cooperate regularly, so if it isn't there, reference this). our mayor is awaiting federal trial on 101 counts of mail fraud, bribery, etc, and even though the two men indicted with him flipped and will no doubt testify for the prosecution, the man refuses to resign. in fact, his burberry sweater and rolex watch-wearing-ass declared indigence so that the city he screwed will pay for his defense. this, just after the man in charge of the mayor's computer charity for kids just went to jail on 97 counts of fraud, much of which larry was associated. he is the same man that brought unicorns to a city hall meeting. he created a commission to bring the olympics (which cost china somewhere in the realm of $43 billion) to birmingham. he declared that birmingham deserved beluga whales in a world's largest aquarium, just like atlanta. he created the $90 million alabama adventure theme park that the county built and subsequently sold for $5 million when it tanked. he practically bankrupted the city of fairfeild while mayor, just before campaigning for a new job in birmingham. he was never, and currently is not actually a legitimate resident of the city of birmingham and therefore is not legally mayor. AND, upon being indicted in a federal civil lawsuit declared, "you can sue a ham sandwich in the state of alabama," ( to FEDERAL charges) amongst other outrageous/delirious quotes. but that's not got me going today. nope. on top of that, the majority of our county commission are being scrutinized or investigated for similar crimes. our county won't declare it, but we're bankrupt (relating to langford's crimes). our county sheriff's department had to sue the county commission for funding so that they could continue to police a county containing a city ranked 8th amongst the most dangerous cities in the nation. our city's budget is a $17 million deficit and all but one member of the city council voted to okay the construction of a $600 million domed stadium (langford's shiny idea) that only the "visionaries" want. we're playing the "get to know your city game." how about all that corruption? that's all without mentioning the county sewer debt crisis and layoffs.

but none of that is forcing me through the motions of the above three frames today. oh no. it was an election day yesterday. an important election. one to wipe the city council slate clean, if we so chose. there was a decent amount of press coverage in the lead-up to this election, since, it was a contended race for almost every seat this year. but no one received more press than "dr" antwon womack. what's strange about that is he was running for the district 6 seat on the board of education, not city council. the reason he received so much press is that "dr" antwon womack lied about his credentials. he didn't happen to actually possess a doctorate and he didn't actually graduate from Alabama A&M, or from high school for that matter. that lie was stupid. he also lied about his age. he claimed to be 23 on his facebook page, the home base for his campaign, but, he was actually 21. also stupid. he then held the following press conference where he admitted to running for the mayor of tarrant, more than likely, on the same resume: (at least watch until he uses the word "strutinized" but the end is really the best)

link if the embed isn't working

not smart.

he also released this statement:
"Today I am re-assuring the voters of my district that has expressed their continuing support in my campaign in spite of my false statements about my pass. I will not comment publicly about my allegations anymore, however now is time for me to express my thoughts on why I am in this race. Early part of the year I questioned about running for the school board and which district to run for, and also talked with my friends and now supporters that encouraged me to enter the race. I think the public should know who encourage me to enter the race and who is supporting my campaign like LaShunda Scales a candidate for District 1 City Council and Carole Smitherman both encouraged me to enter the race and is continuing to support my campaign. And I thank them for their support."

damn, dawg. just not smart.

he lied, but at this point i started to feel bad for him. i DID. he waivered for a bit trying to decide whether to shut down his campaign or go with the ol' saying "there's no such thing as bad publicity." i think he got a bad publicist's advise. he kept his campaign alive and went to the polls.

i've always said,"never underestimate a birmingham city voter." or, i'd like to say that i've always said that. but really, never underestimate a birmingham city voter. the polls closed and the votes were counted and published this morning. "dr" antwon womack received 117 votes. now THAT was stupid. i'm just hoping he has a shitload of family members.

it's hard to comprehend how he received more than 17 votes. it makes me feel crazy. but i think that this points to a larger birmingham problem. it's really a black hole, not a problem(if this were on al.com, every racist asshole that posts comments on that site would turn that into a racial statement. by racist asshole, i mean everyone who posts on that site. anyway, that's another story). "dr" antwon womack is a product of the city school system. a city school system which failed him. he's the product of a city that failed him. we all sit around laughing and poking fun at his fabricated words and syntax. but he really isn't as stupid as he seems. underneath the exterior of his paltry education, a mind is plotting. you can hear it in the press conference, little bits of rhetoric culled from the mouths of local, sly politicians before him. i hear bits of our last three mayors in his defense and over all tone. if he'd been only a little slicker, if he'd been able to cover his past a little better, who knows...perhaps he could have made the board of education? perhaps he could have then run for city council, county commission, or even mayor? this is how we come to receive the birmingham we have now. our political infra-structure is failing us and will continue to fail unless we do something about the status of education in this city - shit, in this state. antwon womacks affect our crime rate, our political system, our education system, and our own lives - but more importantly, we affect their's. we need a change. as a great man once said, "let's do something." we have five runoffs for city council after yesterday's election and four, or so, for the board of education. i hope everyone gets out to vote in the many, many runoffs that take place on oct. 6.

*edit - so in trying to find hyperlinks for all my hilarious references, i found this article by john archibald that basically says exactly what i've said. for the record, i wrote this early this morning before finding his article and didn't feel like deleting all that work. i don't want our one reader to think this wasn't my idea.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

way to steal john archibald's column, doofus.

Falcon Steele said...

whatever. i think it's a pretty common thought. we just happened to both write it down at the same time. although, his column didn't have the video embedded, so suck on that archibald!

Steven H said...

C'mon, you must have at least two readers...

Falcon Steele said...

hell yeah!!! two readers. that's going on the progress chart.