The Pick a Name Game

You can't sting like a bee when you call yourself a mosquito.

In a contest they’re dubbing “Your Town Your Team Your Name,” the United Football League is encouraging participation in choosing what the new football team will be called. Little do they know, voting around here, especially on things like what to call your town, doesn’t work. They’ve pre-picked some options to get things rolling. Choose between Virginia and Hampton Roads and then between the Destroyers, Commanders, Navigators, or Tritons. Is it just me, or does The Virginia Navigators just sound like a bunch of pissed off soccer moms storming down I-264? I encourage everyone to participate with more apt ideas, starting with calling the town Norfolk, as that’s where the team will be located and is where the Tides and Admirals already call home.

Merry Christmas to Norfolk

Of course, voting and polling doesn’t really mean anything, anyway. As we learned yesterday, Waterside’s fate will be delivered to us by Santa Claus, neatly wrapped bow and all, by Christmas. The city will “appoint a panel of experts, including urban planners and commercial real estate specialists, to make recommendations on the facility’s future. The panel will be guided by a recent survey of more than 3,000 residents.” However, as AltDaily reported last Friday, three prominent downtown civic groups have banded together to let the city know they think Waterside should be razed.

Forgive me for being skeptical, but I don’t think those 3,000 recommendations from Norfolk’s citizens will factor into the city’s decision on this one. “Guided” is a great word to use in describing how the popular opinion will be used, as one can be “guided” by Mapquest to do donuts in Janaf Shopping Center when one is actually just going to the AT&T store. One can be “guided” to spend two hours in the maze of function at Ikea when one really just wants a replenishment of cheap candles. One can be “guided” to turn Waterside into a public space filled with retailers like Whole Foods and Urban Outfitters, locally owned cafes tucked inside farmers and fish market hybrids, and art, when one really just wants to tear it down and start over.

I have made this argument before, but I will repeat in case (for some crazypants reason), my recommendation may actually be considered. I think Waterside should be the Coney Island-meets-Southstreet Seaport of Hampton Roads. Central to that is a Ferris Wheel. A big, fun, happy attraction to be enjoyed by people getting off ships, people walking around Town Point Park, people on dates, people on furlough, and people staring at the Norfolk skyline from P-town. Paying an operator is a minimal cost, easily recouped through charging per ride. Treating the area like a boardwalk of sorts on the outside, with the vibe of a market/retail center on the inside, would attract my dollar bills all the time.

War Not. Love Make.

Big capital letters: OUR LONGEST WAR. This Pilot vlog captures the experience of three reporters covering troops in Afghanistan. OUR LONGEST WAR. No bullshit. “Nearly a decade of combat (Pilot‘s emphasis). More than 1,200 U.S. troops killed. $300 billion spent. Deadlier than ever.” OUR LONGEST WAR.“Not pulling the trigger can be as important as pulling it.” Good advice. Perhaps it could result in OUR LAST WAR? Fingers crossed, anyway.

Helping the Homeless Now Only a Decade Away!

I read this and tried really, really hard not to look at the comments. But that’s like not looking at a crash on the side of the highway, a mix of morbid curiousity and “whew, thank God it’s not me” hubris. I often feel that way about the soapbox of interwebbed commentary. On the homeless: “send them all to farms to work so we don’t have another group of people we are forced to provide health care to!!” Yes, prison camp is an excellent idea. What ingenuity! Another comment: “Spend our money on something the Virginia Beach taxpayers need, not homeless….they contribute nothing but strife and grief.” Yep. I know everytime I experience strife or grief, I think to myself, “Those damn homeless people.” Then there’s “We are AMERICA. We don’t need any government interference to ‘help’ with this problem!” Indeed we are America, where, left unsupervised, we would throw all our homeless in work farms, debtor’s prisons, and so on (per comment one,anyway).

Anyway, the official story goes something like this: a Virginia Beach city employee accidentally ran over and killed a homeless man a few months ago and his family is suing the city for $25 million. The city is claiming immunity and responding by establishing a program in which (over the course of ten years) $175,000 will be spent on erecting “The Healing Place of Hampton Roads,” a homeless shelter situated far away from residential areas where homeless men and women with substance abuse issues can crash.

Theoretically, this is a fine idea. Helping the homeless and drug addicted populations are important priorities. Budgeting pennies over decades, however, seems like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. Also, as most homeless people don’t have cars, how would these residents get to the far-away-from-society shelters, excuse me, “healing places,” anyway? And while $25 million may seem excessive for a wrongful death suit, if this is the city’s response to a grieving family they did wrong, it’s not just a giant middle finger to the family, but actually to all of us.

Let’s Get Cera’d

Need a laugh after all that news? This is a class I want to send the city councils of Norfolk and Virginia Beach to, by the way.