CH Council Outlaws Exotic Flappers

At some point, I suspect, Buddy Waskey will realize that he needs to move out of Colonial Heights.  It’s a shame really, because Buddy is truly a shining star in the city because of his aviary, despite what City Council thinks.
While he does have quite the menagerie of birds, he has shown time and again his willingness to do whatever he needs to do to keep his birds in place.  And, perhaps, they get a bit noisy at times, but where else can you go and see the kinds of macaws that he keeps?  Nowhere in this state, that’s for sure.
When I was a kid, my parents hauled us down to Sarasota, Florida, for what amounted as the biggest vacation boondoggle of my life (I think I was about 8 at the time).  We headed out of Long Island in a beat up old Ford station wagon, with my parents, all four siblings, and my grandmother.  My father sent a picture he drew of us down to my other grandparents, showing all of us kids leaning out windows and my grandmother on my Mom’s side riding shotgun in a rocking chair on the roof. That was in the Spring of 1962, a little ahead of the Beverly Hillbillies, which first aired in September of ’62.
I know, I know, so what’s the point? The point is that while we were in Florida, we went to the Sarasota Jungle Gardens.  While there, my brother and I, both pretty young at the time, got to have a macaw put on our shoulders for a “photo op.”  I laughed, because the one on my brother’s should periodically grabbed some of his hair and pulled.
My point here is that these kinds of birds are intriguing.  Notwithstanding how Buddy’s neighbors feel about the whole thing, imposing the strict rules that council stands up for seems out of place in this case.
Buddy is part of some free flying organization that works with the birds so that they can fly around rather than be stuck in exile in some cage.  Watching his birds in flight is amazing, to say the least. They are well trained and, as far as I know, have never caused any harm to anyone and are less of a nuisance than those other illegal alien Canadian geese that seem to flourish around the mall, Wally World (WalMart), and behind and beside Sam’s Club.  And that’s not to mention the abundance of Ring Billed seagulls that fly overhead in formations looking for something to attack.
At some level, I understand that City Council wants to hold the line on the city’s ordinances. I mean, how else can we get people to put their trash cans behind the front line of their homes, or pick up unsightly objects in their yards?  Still, the point is that City Council has the discretion to override some ordinances via the Conditional Use Permit.
The City may be right to hold the line on this matter. I mean, perhaps the noise that that many birds makes is too much, no matter how hard Buddy has tried to dampen the squawking.  But still, there has to be some other compromise that could have been reached.
When I lived in Italy, a friend of mine had four Doberman’s and a pair of mastiffs.  The City of Milan sent him a letter explaining why he could not have so many dogs.  So he got rid of some of his Dobies.  He then proceeded to buy a lion.  The lion was allowed by the city, but now instead of some occasional barking, his neighbors, who lived in a high rise apartment complex, got to hear the lion roar on occasion.
In this case, I don’t think a lion would be appropriate.  I think the city needs to take a different perspective on things like Buddy’s birds, which don’t really fit into the ordnance as written.  But then, I suppose if the city is stuck on beautifying the area via ordnance it may be time to move out.
The idea of voting out members of council fell flat on its face last November.  The only seat that changed was Diane Yate’s seat, and there only because she chose not to run.  For those who think that is the way to fight back, God bless you, but there isn’t enough support to change Council.
I applaud Council for enforcing the City Code rather than creating other pesky changes that are annoyances because the code hadn’t been enforced.  But there are times when we end up pounding the square peg through the round hole and standing on principles that should be looked at on a case-by-case basis.  Buddy may in fact be the one who free flies from the city.

Homo Simpleton and Huckleberry Finn, et al

Ahh sweet censorship; I know thy stench.

The recent ruling by the Powers of Appropriateness in Accomack County deciding that perhaps they should look again at banning such books as “Huckleberry Finn” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” have now shifted their perspective to non-banning. Of course, they should not be banned.

In most cases, IMO, censorship is at best wrong-headed and at worst the imposition of a few incompetents over the rest of us somewhat sane people. It’s outrageous to me that a book like Huck could get shelved because someone’s sensibilities seizes on a scrap of language, doesn’t take into account how it fits into the theme of the work, and then extrapolates their unease to such an extent that they feel it best to keep everyone away from such a thing.

No doubt, they are saving the world from having to actually think. Huckleberry Finn is a condemnation of racism. Not addressing the very thing that it is condemning is tantamount to not calling the current anti-social activities that drive things like 9- 11, the Orlando shootings, and the incident in California by its true name: radical Islamic Terrorism.

And yet, how many people have actually read the darn thing? People cast about and see a word they don’t like and immediately assume the worst of its use. But how can you write about an evil thing without defining it? In Twain’s case, most of these “inappropriate” comments and language are there to prove a point. They cast Huck’s naiveté in the midst of one of the most horrendous ethical dilemmas of his and our time. Heck, it’s still an ethical dilemma and it likely won’t get “fixed” until we the people expunge it.

 Look how far our country has gotten away from racism to date? How far we have come since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke his “I have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963, and spoke about having his children judged “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Sadly, I don’t think we have come very far despite the intervening 55 years.

Racism is a multi-headed beast. It is hidden in our society except when dredged up by various circumstance. It is also not a one way street. Racists come in all kinds of varieties. It is also a tool for some who when on the beach see the stone and not the sand it has become.

We all need to do better about race. We all need to be sensitive to others and their feelings when it comes to race. As a white man, it’s impossible for me to understand that kind of oppression.

In discussion with one of my friends a decade ago, he told me that the problem with being an African-American is that every morning when he woke up he’d look at his hands and his skin was still black.​

Race is something that we cannot simply set aside like an old suit. We wear it every day. But ignoring it, or not taking it into account, is fool hardy. Later this week I will turn 62 years old and if there is one thing that I know it’s that people are good and bad and indifferent. What really matters is the content of their character.

And to bring that back around to Huck, we need to see what his character says and does and then we may be able to judge the literature. But if we get caught up in the surface, if we think the suit is too old, then we may as well not try to make things better. We may as well just wallow in our own self-pity and think the sun revolves around the Earth