If you watch the evening news tonight, this is the picture you are likely to see, a photo of a Kincaid for Mayor sign on top of a burned out home in Council District 2. But here’s the kicker: It was distributed to the media by Mayor Bernard Kincaid. If you’re waiting for the clever twist, there is none, except that it is the first campaign gaffe of this election year.
Here’s the story.
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FIND YOUR PLACE IN THE CIRCLE:
And learn a new skill and give back to the community all at once. The Levite Jewish Community Center hosts The Circle of Life Knitting Group every Tuesday. Starting at 10 a.m., group leaders Roz Feigelson, Lynette Slaughter and Carol Tuck preside over a group with a tri-fold purpose: to teach knitting to all levels, to honor those women in our community by giving them a scarf to remind them of the love and support that Birmingham has for them, and to knit scarves and wraps for cancer patients at UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center, Cooper Green Hospital, and Brookwood Hospital. The Circle of Life is the brainchild of Feigelson, a breast cancer survivor who wanted to give back to the community. The group is open to the public as well as LJCC members. Call 879-0411 or go to www.bhamjcc.org
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Whenever the subject of housing comes up, the knee jerk reaction from many people, including most politicians, is to think of public housing. In my experience, fewer people think of actual houses.
As The Birmingham News aptly illustrated last week, the city tears down hundreds of dilapidated and abandoned houses every year. But even at that rate there are thousands more than need to be rehabbed or demolished. Burned out or crumbling shells blight neighborhoods throughout the city, dragging down the property values of adjacent homes and giving shelter to drug dens. Meanwhile, recalcitrant landlords throughout the city buy distressed homes for cheap and lease the properties until they are no longer habitable.
Interestingly enough, the city already has tools to fix some of these problems. Read the full story
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Starting this week, Huffman United Methodist Church will host several meet-and-greet sessions with Birmingham mayoral candidates. The events will be hosted by an independent group of area residents hoping to inspire community interest and participation in the political process. There will only be one candidate and campaign in attendance each night. Each program runs from 6-8 p.m. The schedule is as follows:
Aug. 28 – William Bell
Sept. 4 – Patrick Cooper
Sept. 11 – Valerie Abbott
Oct. 2 – Larry Langford
During the first half-hour, each candidate will be allow to present his or her platform, then a three- to five-person panel will pose questions. The second half-hour will consist of an open question-and-answer period, followed by an hour of informal, one-on-one conversations.
Huffman United Methodist Church is located at 711 Gene Read Road. For more information, call 296-6890.
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IT’S INDEPENDENT: It stars Steve Buscemi. You know what that means: It’s only playing at the Capri Theatre in Montgomery, where they actually care about movies! Buscemi also directed Interview, in which he plays a veteran political writer given the unlikely assignment of interviewing a Lindsay Lohan-like celebrity. The latter is played – fetchingly, frighteningly — by Sienna Miller. The duo goes at it all night long, putting on display the incomparable way that two people can get intimate through questions and answers. The show runs Aug. 24-30. Show times are 7:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Matinees start at 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. See what else Birmingham is missing in independent film by checking www.capritheatre.org.
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LOVE, LOSS, LOVE LOSS AND WORLD DOMINATION:
Those are among the myriad themes that you can expect J’Mel R. Davidson will address in his one-man-show I’ll Make You Love Me!, premiering on Saturday, Aug. 25, at Lucy’s Coffee & Tea on University Blvd. The adored and abhorred Weekly columnist is the founder of an improv comedy troupe called the Feminist Debutante Guild, which is proud (and has no choice but) to present this collection of monologues written by Mr. Suburban Legends and directed by Doug O’Neill. There will be two shows two Saturdays in a row – 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Aug. 25 and Sept. 1. Tickets cost only $8, but seating is limited and reservations are required. If you want in, call 240-5754.
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So if you haven’t read my column this week, which you can find here, I should say first that I’m not actually running for Birmingham mayor. Rather, the question I want to work through, with some help from readers, is what would be the perfect campaign platform if I did? In my column I call it the political version of fantasy football. This is an experiment in political journalism, and I’m hoping you eager readers will help make it successful.
During the next week or so here, I will write daily mini columns on various issues facing the city. My hope is that these little manifestos will start a larger discussion. Readers can critique what I’ve written and contribute your own ideas about politics and public policy in Birmingham. This should be a collaborative effort, with some sort of synthesis at the end. When we’re done we should have a People’s Platform — a kind of touchstone for the mayoral candidates.
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The Southern States Development Director for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, Charles James is interested in financial empowerment, affordable healthcare, children’s advocacy, quality public education and getting out the vote. These are a few of the reasons that the Birmingham native and political consultant has enlisted the help of more than a dozen local and national nonprofit organizations to develop an ACORN presence in Birmingham.
The ACORN & Friends Greater Birmingham Community Empowerment Summit will be held from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 25, at the Birmingham YWCA, located at 309 23rd Street North. The event will begin with a keynote speech by Congressman Artur Davis, followed by an afternoon of presentations and discussion forums and concluding with a buffet reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Door prizes will be awarded throughout the day and several spoken word artists and inspirational speakers will perform.
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OK, so there’s no big surprise there. But according to one sexual health professional, the reason men and women face sexual problems in this day and age may come as a surprise.
“You have to look at males and females differently,” says Jane Brown, a sex therapist with over 20 years experience who works in private practice and at UAB’s Kirklin Clinic. Brown has a master’s in psychology from UAB and is licensed by the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists, specializing in male and female sexual desire problems, couples with sexual problems and sex offender assessment and treatment.
“Ninety percent of sexual dysfunction in men has a medical basis, only five to 10 percent is purely psychological,” she says. “Female sexual dysfunction is really just now being addressed, but as opposed to males, there is a major psychological factor in female sexual dysfunction, although there can be a medical cause.”
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A special prosecutor dropped charges this morning against Birmingham City Councilor Joel Montgomery, after Montgomery promised not to sue the city. The District One councilor was arrested April 7 in a Five Points South parking lot, where police found him bloodied and belligerent. He was charged with public intoxication.
Montgomery’s lawyers have insisted that Montgomery fell from a small retaining wall in the parking lot where he was found and that he had been disoriented from the fall.
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