Batter Up, Richmond City Council

Whether or not the Richmond City Council will deliver on the proposal to move baseball into Shockoe Bottom may not be decided for some time yet. But one thing is for certain, they ought to take their time considering the deal.

This isn’t the same as the Sixth Street Market place fiasco, which faltered and failed right before council’s, and everyone else’s, very eyes. Richmond’s attempts at revitalization have been fraught with problems that run the gamut from lack of sufficient study to a variety of political shenanigans. One good judge of the future is to look at the past. And, in this case at least, it appears that Richmond City Council is taking the high road by ensuring that the proposal is something that they can live with.

Once completed, it will be much harder to get rid of than the remnants of Sixth Street Market Place were. There will be, first and foremost, the ballpark itself to deal with. What do you do with a failed baseball field in the middle of the downtown area?

According to a Graham Moomaw story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch recently, it would seem that council is taking the right approach. They are not just leaping out on faith, as they have in the past. They appear to be seriously considering the proposal, which one way or the other, would seriously affect the Bottom for decades to come.

There is little question that the city needs to upgrade the ballfield facilities if it hopes to keep a professional baseball team in town. That very reason was behind the Braves moving out, and now with the Squirrels it seems appropriate that the city consider this alternative.

The area in question, Shockoe Bottom, could use some serious revitalization. Some of the amendments that Councilman Charles R. Samuels has called for seem reasonable. Certainly, the archaeological excavation and an updated traffic study seem on target. But the one drawback in his proposal was creating a development plan for the Boulevard. That’s not to say that such a plan doesn’t have merit, but my experience with such plans is that they often take years to finalize. We don’t have years to wait.

As it is with any project of this magnitude, doing the work up front to ensure you get most of what you want is the only way to go. Plan, plan, plan and hope that not too many unknown unknowns get in the way to make you have to modify the plans too often, or God forbid, too late in the process when change is most costly.

The one thing you really don’t want to happen is to find a show stopper when you are waste deep into the project. So, for me, taking the time up front to make sure the project is something you can live with is paramount.

From my personal perspective, I rarely go to the Bottom. An occasional foray to Bottom’s Up is one thing, or the obligatory side trip of taking visiting family members to see the Poe Museum or to head up to Church Hill is another. But to go to the Bottom for pretty much any other reason is not something that is high on my personal agenda.

Putting a ball park there would change that for me. As it is, I don’t attend many games at The Diamond. Driving and parking issues always seem to get in the way for me. Still, I am a baseball fan—I’ve attended hundreds and hundreds of ball games throughout Virginia, but I want my entertainment made easy.

If they do it right, and I suspect if Richmond City Council votes in favor of this proposal eventually, it will be done right, then I would definitely be in line for tickets more often.

There’s little question that this would change the face of Richmond’s downtown area. There is also little question that if it isn’t done right, you could end up with a Cubic Zirconia instead of a Diamond. So, take your time Richmond City Council. Make sure you cover all the bases before you take your turn at bat.

Out of the Closet and into the Fire

Okay, so the pressure of the media over the past several weeks, including the oppressive anti-gay antics of Vlad “The Impaler” Putin’s Sochi experiment, have really gotten to me. Taking into account Michael Sam’s recent heroic act of standing up for his lifestyle, I feel forced to do the same.

Yes, Virginia, I am a lesbian.

There, I said it, and now that it’s out in the open I feel much better. For years I have harbored this inmost secret, afraid that both of my friends would abandon me and leave me on that heap of lost souls along with:  Liberace, Freddie Mercury, Sponge Bob Square Pants, and all those other gays to be named later. Yes, I know Sponge Bob is a cartoon, but what does that matter?

Why is it that we so-called human beings are even concerned with this topic? Don’t those who cling the most to anti-gay rhetoric realize that the psychology behind their hate-driven arguments really points back to themselves? Truly, it shouldn’t bother them at all. The fact that it does leads a critical thinker to the conclusion that they likely see and fear those subtleties within themselves.

So, let’s talk about what it means for someone to be honest to themselves. Have you ever tried to live a life of concealment, a life where you dare not let the public know about your private life just because a stage full of morons are likely to condemn you?

Give me a break.

Gay or straight and black or white, who really cares? Isn’t it time we grabbed that now ancient adage and looked at people for the content of their character? Do you really think that Dr. Martin Luther King’s statement only fits in with the American Civil Rights movement and anti-black sentiment?

Truth is truth.

If what Dr. King said is true for the American psyche, and I believe it is, it applies to everyone. Our founding fathers nearly balked at that one statement in the Declaration of Independence, All men are created equal. These were, obviously, intelligent people. Many of them were slave owners. Do you think for a minute that they didn’t see the irony in that statement given the situation in the United States at the time?

No. Not for a minute. In fact, they argued over the “peculiar institution” and how it jarred against the very statement they put in the declaration. Au contraire, mon ami. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Thomas Jefferson himself condemned the injustice of the slave trade and by implication slavery. Through pretzel logic, Jefferson blamed the slave trade on British colonial policies, trying to absolve Americans, and himself, of any responsibility for the trade. The Continental Congress, while admitting to the issue, opted to cut that passage out of the declaration. They felt, in essence, that slavery was subordinate to the larger goal of securing the unity and independence of the United States. Embarking on the abolition of slavery would undermine the colonies’ ability to join forces, as it did nearly 90 years later. Instead, they opted not to address the “peculiar institution” not because they supported it, but because it would work toward disunity.

Don’t believe that? What happened in 1860?

And so that brings us back to the ethical question about homosexuality. Like the question of skin color, what difference does it make, really? We all laugh, we all cry, we all bleed, and we all die. None are exempt. If you are born, guess what, it’s likely that you will experience all of the above. I’m not sure if that applies to clones, but somehow I sense it might.

So, why are we so hate-filled about something that really doesn’t matter at all in the end? It’s hard to believe it’s nature; so maybe it’s nurture. The worms don’t care about color, creed, or sexual preference and neither should we. They just as willingly gobble up gays as they do members of the Klan.

Stand up if you must as king of Ignoramus Mountain, but as for me, I prefer to think of people as equals. Black, white, red, yellow, or gay—it’s all the same to me. Until, that is, the person proves themselves to be some variation of buffoon. But even then, it’s easier and more prudent just to allow them to go their separate way. The worms win in the end, anyway.

Beware the Napoleon Complex

It’s not enough to be living in this angst-filled 21^st Century than someone else has to come out and give us yet another reason to look down upon ourselves. It’s really no wonder that the suicide rate is so high today, and the proportion of people taking:  Prozac, Paxil, Celexa, Zoloft, or Cymbalta is reaching a ridiculous frequency. With all that in the background, you would think that the citizens in United States don’t need another reason to feel bad about themselves, but nooooooooooooo.

It seems that Psychiatry Today has uncovered a very profound truth (well, it is psychiatry after all) that indicates shorter people may feel inferior to others who are taller. Hold the presses! This is astonishing news. From the people who brought you the Napoleon complex comes this staggering, mind-blowing, study:  people who had their height “virtually lowered” felt inferior and mistrustful.

Really now.

That’s right up there with the advertisements for class action lawsuits that say, “If you experienced any of these symptoms:  runny nose, cold, sore throat, or death; you may be eligible for compensation.”

So it seems a group of British researchers studied a group of 60 adult women who used a virtual reality simulation to take rides on the London Underground subway, also known as The Tube. For study purposes, their height was not altered on their first trip. On their second trip, however, the researchers took them down nearly 10 inches.

Surprisingly enough, the participants commented on their second ride experience. They reported an increase in negative feelings, such as incompetence, inferiority, and feeling as if they were not liked.  They also reported increased paranoia toward other virtual “passengers” on the train. Most of the participants, however, did not realize their height had been lowered for the second simulation—which apparently led these junior Sigmund Freuds to believe that a solid dosing of Zoloft was needed—much the same as they do in today’s society.

For the most part, according to the researchers, the people behaved the same in the virtual environment as they do in a real subway—oh wonder of wonders. Interestingly enough, the researchers also disclosed that the women who participated in the study “were prone to having mistrustful thoughts.”

How on earth can you make any kind of conclusions from that data set?

They go on to say that the study provides insight into paranoia. According to the lead researcher, Daniel Freeman, a professor at the University of Oxford, the study shows “that people’s excessive mistrust of others directly builds upon their own negative feelings about themselves.”

Obviously psychiatry is an inexact science, if it is a science indeed. The battlefield is strewn with theories about this, that, and the other. Freud hammered away about the Id, the Ego, and the Alter Ego, and Carl Jung had his archetypes. But in the end it’s really all theory. It doesn’t take some kind of study to come up with a “truth” that is plain as the nose on your face.

Ultimately, someone paid for this study. Who, I don’t really know, but I am sure that at least one or two people have been making a living on this project through some obscure funding source. And in the end it’s not too far a reach from the idea of studying bovine emanations to see how they might affect the atmosphere. No doubt, the number of cows that dot the countryside from sea to shining sea have at least as much to do with contaminating the air as the cars that travel the Interstate highways do.

For as long as I remember people have talked about the Napoleon Complex, the idea that being short in some way affects the psyche’ and can create ego maniacs who do crazy things to compensate for being short. Napoleon stood five-foot six-inches tall. Not tall by today’s standard, but certainly not too short. While that may seem short today, by the standards of 1799 he was actually two inches taller than the five-foot four-inch average height for European men at the time. So even that psychiatric invention concerning Napoleon would appear to be wrong, and I suspect that there is no exact science when it comes to psychiatry and the bulk of it resides with an individual’s perception.  In other words, believe what you want. For me, I believe this study was a waste of time and money.