http://www.al.com/birminghamnews/stories/index.ssf?/base/news/1207815311239090.xml&coll=2Langford plans to buy burlap sacks as part of plan to fight crime in city
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Mayor Larry Langford has a new plan to change the city.
Build a canal connecting Five Points West to Uncle Miltie's Racecourse and Gamblatorium? Use horses from the freshly funded equestrian center to pull mass-transit gondolas across town?
Nah. Those plans still have a few kinks. This time, Langford wants to reduce crime. With burlap sacks. Really.
I just know I've heard this story before. It seems so ... familiar.
It reminds me of being 11 years old and gullible as a "do-something" voter. It was a cold, rainy camping trip, and the veteran Boy Scouts took us little guys on something called a "snipe hunt."
You know how it works:
Give a trusting dope a burlap sack and send him into the woods. Tell him to squat in the dark in silence, until the "snipe chasers" come beating the bushes to drive the coveted birds right into the bag. Just close the sack and the snipe is yours.
Remain still and silent, or you'll mess it up for everybody.
Of course the chasers go back to the campfire and laugh. The inexperienced among us sit still in the dark until the realization dawns that there's another name for this activity:
A wild goose chase.
Yuck, yuck. And now Langford wants to change the city with burlap sacks. And ash.
We're chasing geese again.
Langford on Tuesday spoke of plans to buy 2,000 burlap sacks for the city. There's no word yet on how much they will cost, although bag suppliers sell them in bulk for as little as 67 cents each or as much as $2. A little bond swap would make short work of that.
Langford wants to use the sacks in a citywide prayer service designed to reduce crime. They are to be worn and handed out by clergy because sackcloth and ashes are mentioned time and again in the Bible, where the humble, grief-stricken and repentant put on such sacks, smudge their faces and pray.
I just don't know if it's wise to go all Old Testament on crime. I guess it's good Langford didn't focus on Psalm 137, where happiness comes from dashing the heads of enemy babies against rocks. And lucky for him he didn't pick out Leviticus 24, where God tells Moses to "bring the one who has cursed outside the camp, and ... let all the congregation stone him."
But Langford - who has cursed a few times outside his own camp - certainly doesn't mind mixing his theology with politics.
"If you don't want to pray, fine," he has said, responding to claims he blurs the line between church and state. "Just keep your evil self away from me because it's hard enough dealing with Christians anyway."
We've got to quit our sniping, I guess. Or get back in the hunt. You know the deal.
Remain still and silent, or we'll mess it up for everybody.
That bird is almost in the bag.
I tell you, though, seeing an ashen-faced Langford in a burlap bag would be worth it all. This is the guy with the fashion fetish, you know, the man who told SEC lawyers he owed 70 grand because he was "a clothes person."
Maybe Remon's Clothiers downtown can whip him up a three-piece burlap suit.
John Archibald's column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Write him at: jarchibald@bhamnews.com
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