Greetings to the Folks at the Commercial Appeal!

Does someone at the CA read Half-Bakered? Have we arrived so soon? Or do great minds think alike?

In a previous post, titled "How Soon They Forget," I wrote about the CA's story on proposed rules to prevent "cruising," or "flexing" as the young folks call it today. I made an analogy using American Graffiti, the classic movie on cruising. Well, in Saturday's lead editorial, the editors use the same analogy!

The editorial blames flexers for traffic problems downtown, citing the city's failure to provide adequate parking, traffic control and streets. Yep, pack the downtown with stuff to draw people in and then blame them when things get crowded in an area where the city hasn't adequately addressed fundamental issues.

The problems flexers really pose are three-fold:

* First, they are young, black and culturally different from the majority white population that lives in, develops and profits from the downtown. Guess who loses?

* Second, they don't spend money. Therefore, they have no need to be there, of course.

* Third, I still maintain my point from the original post, one still not acknowledged in the CA editorial. That is, the flexers are a nuisance to the folks who live on the bluff, who prefer their river-views unpolluted by the great unwashed.

Until next time,
Your Working Boy