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The visit that placed Alabama and it's state government at the forefront of incompetence and made Alabama the poster child for poverty and racism was no act of theater and indeed representative of the lack of leadership that has Alabama ranked 49th out of 50.
If you have difficulty discerning the theatrics and stagecraft involved in the "visit" then you are much more susceptible to propaganda and rhetoric than I am. When an outside influence group suddenly decides to take a field trip, flies directly to a specific problem spot that checks all of the "Ain't it awful" boxes - WITHOUT checking any that might offend the base - it just might be designed as theater and a low shot. Ya think? Notice the race card being prominently played. Notice that all of Alabama gets the same paint, with no mention that each county has a public health officer. The trip might as well be a touring production of "Tobacco Road."
Basic wastewater management and serious disease from septic shock is not overkill and in Alabama's case presents a very toxic health hazard. The attitude that proper septic management is not an absolute requirement (specifically for a blue voting area of the Black Belt in a red state) is yet more evidence why Alabama is continuing to fail as a state.
Septic shock is an entirely different condition, unrelated to septic systems. I also fail to see you make a meaningful point regarding the area in question voting blue. Do you mean to say that red counties are more likely to take public health seriously? Are you suggesting Butler would be better off red?
An excerpt from the article referencing the obvious health threat of open sewage:
On Thursday, Alston visited communities in the Black Belt's Butler and Lowndes counties, where residents often fall ill with ailments like E. Coli and hookworm - a disease of extreme poverty long eradicated in most parts of the U.S. - in part because they do not have consistently reliable access to clean drinking water that has not been tainted by raw sewage and other contaminants.Aaron Thigpen, an activist who has lived in Fort Deposit for all of his 29 years, showed Alston around a Lowndes County property where five members of his extended family, including two minor children and an 18-year-old with Down syndrome, live in a modest home.
With Spark notes:
On Thursday, Alston visited communities in the Black Belt's Butler and Lowndes counties, where residents often fall ill with ailments like E. Coli and hookworm - a disease of extreme poverty long eradicated in most parts of the U.S. - in part because they do not have consistently reliable access to clean drinking water that has not been tainted by raw sewage and other contaminants.
E-coli is not an "ailment." EVERY living human has strains of E-coli in the gut. Gastroenteritis is an ailment that can happen when foodstuffs are contaminated with certain strains from that group, such as in the romaine lettuce recalls. More often, e-coli is used as a marker that human waste is likely present. Hookworm is not related to clean drinking water as much as walking barefoot over soil contaminated by the waste of someone who has hookworm. Characterizing a disease like hookworm as a disease of extreme poverty is rhetoric. Visit any rural public swimming hole and you have the potential of getting hookworm. You could be a billionaire and get hookworm.
Aaron Thigpen, an activist who has lived in Fort Deposit for all of his 29 years, showed Alston around a Lowndes County property where five members of his extended family, including two minor children and an 18-year-old with Down syndrome, live in a modest home.
Down syndrome is not a disease caused by poverty or sewage. Note, however, how it gets slipped in for those who don't know that distinction, so they can be more horrified. That is vile propaganda that negatively impacts the innocent group of people that suffer from Down's, simply to push the rhetoric. And of course, it is an activist doing the guiding of the tour. What is interesting is that even though the activist is showing the problems, he resorts to using family - who, one might think, should know better. Pondering the reasons for that choice, I come up with some interesting possibilities.
Their house, like those of many of their neighbors, discharges its raw sewage via long, aging "straight pipes" that release the effluent aboveground, where it sits in fetid open-air pools.
Aging? There are pipes that don't age? It does help build a nice mental picture though, the way those of us skilled at writing sometimes do to excess, as we toss our flaxen wind-blown hair on a clear crisp Colorado mountaintop and laugh at the world below us.
Their sewage runs into sparsely wooded areas or across grassy fields when it rains, spreading the waste and the pathogens it contains, generating toxic conditions, repulsive visuals and an overwhelming stench.
Yep, that is what can happen when you don't use a shovel and dig a hole for an outhouse, but decide it more convenient to have the pot inside and, while at it, add the kitchen, shower, or tub waste in. I have an old house on my property where years ago an elderly woman lived. It had a straight pipe from the kitchen sink. Out back was an outhouse. When she relieved herself, she did so inside on an invalid toilet and carried the bucket or bag to the outhouse. Some choices on how to live are personal choices.
"These two pipes are the raw sewage pipes coming from the house. And you've got your main water line here, and it may have a hole in it, so everyone gets sick all at once," Thigpen said, pointing to exposed pipes running over a dank swamp of raw sewage.
If the main line is pressurized, that claim defies physics. I will admit though, it can be easier to complain than spend a couple of days digging holes, re-routing waste and water lines, and then training grandma and the kids to do anything more than sit and flush.
... and the UN poverty official (they have such an official position?), having served his purpose retreats to the comfort of his bureaucracy, knowing that he has provided exactly the slanted view that can be used to denigrate and mock.
Location: Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, and Raleigh
2,580 posts, read 2,487,377 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
... and the UN poverty official (they have such an official position?), having served his purpose retreats to the comfort of his bureaucracy, knowing that he has provided exactly the slanted view that can be used to denigrate and mock.
Nobody should care who brought it to the attention. What is the state government going to do to inform and empower the elected officials in those Black Blet counties so that conditions do not persist after this report? That is like getting mad at someone for telling you that pant's fly zipper is unzipped. Instead of getting mad at them for pointing that out and diverting attention from the problem, we need the Alabama elected leadership, i.e. those in power in the Alabama Legislature and Governor to be trying to resolve this dilemma in these areas of the state.
Nobody cares about the distractions of who addressed the problems, those affected only care about how are we going to get solutions to these problems.
Nobody should care who brought it to the attention. What is the state government going to do to inform and empower the elected officials in those Black Blet counties so that conditions do not persist after this report? That is like getting mad at someone for telling you that pant's fly zipper is unzipped. Instead of getting mad at them for pointing that out and diverting attention from the problem, we need the Alabama elected leadership, i.e. those in power in the Alabama Legislature and Governor to be trying to resolve this dilemma in these areas of the state.
Nobody cares about the distractions of who addressed the problems, those affected only care about how are we going to get solutions to these problems.
There is some personal responsibility included in their too, not just government responsibility.
There is some personal responsibility included in their (sic) too, not just government responsibility.
There is more than SOME personal responsibility involved. The government didn't come in and place the straight pipes. The government did not build on the land. The government didn't decide using an outhouse was too much work.
Freedom is messy. People screw up. The county health officer appears lax in allowing conditions to continue, but I'd be willing to bet there was more to the story.
Nobody should care who brought it to the attention. What is the state government going to do to inform and empower the elected officials in those Black Blet counties so that conditions do not persist after this report? That is like getting mad at someone for telling you that pant's fly zipper is unzipped. Instead of getting mad at them for pointing that out and diverting attention from the problem, we need the Alabama elected leadership, i.e. those in power in the Alabama Legislature and Governor to be trying to resolve this dilemma in these areas of the state.
Nobody cares about the distractions of who addressed the problems, those affected only care about how are we going to get solutions to these problems.
Looks like you are from Georgia, not Alabama. Guess you are another "out of state expert" on Alabama who knows more than the actual residents.
As I said, I live in rural Alabama, 75 years old, and never seen saw sewage dumped. But who am I, someone from Pennsylvania, Georgia, and certainly the UN who was looking for a specific agenda would know far more than myself!
Looks like you are from Georgia, not Alabama. Guess you are another "out of state expert" on Alabama who knows more than the actual residents.
As I said, I live in rural Alabama, 75 years old, and never seen saw sewage dumped. But who am I, someone from Pennsylvania, Georgia, and certainly the UN who was looking for a specific agenda would know far more than myself!
And I’m sure you could find the same living conditions in some of the poverty stricken counties in south GA.
Location: Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, and Raleigh
2,580 posts, read 2,487,377 times
Reputation: 1614
Quote:
Originally Posted by GreggT
Looks like you are from Georgia, not Alabama. Guess you are another "out of state expert" on Alabama who knows more than the actual residents.
As I said, I live in rural Alabama, 75 years old, and never seen saw sewage dumped. But who am I, someone from Pennsylvania, Georgia, and certainly the UN who was looking for a specific agenda would know far more than myself!
Dude, I'm originally from Birmingham, so miss me with your assumptions. Just because you are from some random part of rural Alabama that never seen this occurrence does not mean your myopia justifies that type of willful ignorance and negligence. The State of Alabama needs to allow ALL COUNTIES AND MUNICIPALITIES their own ability of local governance, i.e. full home rule. That they can generate their own sources of revenue via economic development and regulate common municipal services including water provision, wastewater treatment from households, zoning/land use, and public infrastructure maintenance. Go away with this backwoods "I haven't seen anything so it doesn't exist" nonsense.
And I’m sure you could find the same living conditions in some of the poverty stricken counties in south GA.
I'm sure but please remember what that "so called" UN expert said that 50% of the folks were dumping raw sewage in rural Alabama:
"I guess when the UN director of world poverty recently called rural Alabama a shocking display of the worst impoverished conditions in a first world county he has ever witnessed, AND highlighted on ground sewage dumping, he was just making stuff up, eh? Or when I'm spending the winter in Gulf Shores and reading articles about how 50% of all low income rural dwellers in some areas of the state have on site waste disposal that essentially dumps raw sewage in the yard,"
All I'm saying is all these Alabama "Experts" do not even live in our state but yet know all about it and call into question those state residents who actually know what is going on!
If I recall correctly, the map was of developing megaregions. And yes, it seems to be a pretty loose definition. The only real megalopolis in the eastern half of the country is Boston-Washington. There's also a lot of empty space between Atlanta and Charlotte.
I suppose the Alabama part is part of the developing megaregion because of population density. I haven't looked into it, but I suspect there are more people in the NE quadrant of the state plus Tuscaloosa than there are in the rest of the state.
As long as it's very close to the I 95 Corridor.
Baltimore and DC are considered the fourth largest statistical area population wise in the US.
Between Boston and New York is quite sparse. Like 215 Miles apart.
Baltimore, DC, and Philly are all close. I know, I am right in the middle almost. Middle West .
Again, anybody can say the state they live in is awful. And there many sites that do not make a lot of sense in their critique of certain states.
I saw one for retirement the other day and it was so far off it was sad. It's not just about affordability. It was light years off on some of the things it stated, and it was Business Insider.
Dude, I'm originally from Birmingham, so miss me with your assumptions. Just because you are from some random part of rural Alabama that never seen this occurrence does not mean your myopia justifies that type of willful ignorance and negligence. The State of Alabama needs to allow ALL COUNTIES AND MUNICIPALITIES their own ability of local governance, i.e. full home rule. That they can generate their own sources of revenue via economic development and regulate common municipal services including water provision, wastewater treatment from households, zoning/land use, and public infrastructure maintenance. Go away with this backwoods "I haven't seen anything so it doesn't exist" nonsense.
50% DUDE, 50%! Not saying it does not occur, but 50%, give me a break DUDE!!!
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Notice the race card being prominently played. Notice that all of Alabama gets the same paint, with no mention that each county has a public health officer. The trip might as well be a touring production of "Tobacco Road."
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