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Posted on August 5, 2011

Hot Seat & Limelight (August 4, 2011)

By Andy McWhorter  

Bye-bye boonies: The country is failing. No, I’m not spouting some rhetoric about how the United States is doomed to die. (It’s not.) According to the Associated Press, rural America is at its lowest population in history, with only 16 percent of citizens roughing it in the boonies. The depopulation has mainly been caused by the expansion of metropolitan areas. Young people are moving away from their homes in the countryside to the city while the people who stay are growing too old to have children. In this tough economy, jobs are easier to find in cities than they are out in the rural U.S.

Barring significant growth over the next few years, the image of the peaceful country side could become a thing of the past as cities become larger and less distinct. Good luck, Midwest.

We have government! Well, after weeks of uncertainty and fear, a debt deal was finally worked out between Democrats and Republicans that prevents the federal government from shutting down. For a while it seemed as if the half the country was screaming at Congress to reach a compromise, so, naturally, the moment they did everybody and their grandmother cried foul.

Republicans dislike the deal because they feel it doesn’t make enough cuts to spending. Democrats feel like they lost too much ground to Republican interests and cut too much. It’s become almost comical how much people like to complain about how the government doesn’t do its job. So why is there so much more whining when it actually accomplishes something?

Justice sues Alabama: Alabama’s immigration law has been challenged so many times in court now that it’s easy to lose track of exactly how many groups of litigators are trying to put the beast down. It has to be at least five or six. But there’s a bigger fish in the sea now. The Department of Justice filed suit against Alabama on Monday to block the immigration law from taking effect. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a press release, “Today’s action makes clear that setting immigration policy and enforcing immigration laws is a national responsibility that cannot be addressed through a patchwork of state immigration laws.” This is just guesswork, but maybe when The Justice Department is out for your bill’s blood, you might have done something wrong.

Birmingham gets a ball park: A domed stadium might not be the magical economic shock to the heart that Birmingham needs, but a new baseball park adjacent to Railroad Park can’t hurt. According to The Birmingham News, Mayor William Bell will present a plan for Birmingham’s new park next week. The park, whose footprint has been moved to the south of Railroad Park, will allow The Birmingham Barons to come to the city after playing in Hoover for more than 20 years. The ball park is part of a larger plan by the city to turn Parkside, the area around Railroad Park, into an area where retail and restaurants will flourish. Rising property prices in the area around Railroad Park pose a minor threat to development in the area, but Parkside will likely continue to develop into the future.
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