Alabama bans Cycles Gladiator wine

[sfa]

The 300,000 southern Baptists sign is before my time, but I think this is in the same vein. It's on I-65N just north of Montgomery (just past the Prattville exit).


<rant>Because, you know, as long as you go to church you're fine.. doesn't matter about what kind of person you are, so long as Sunday morning your butt is in a pew</rant>

That's a brilliant sign! Love it!

My DH has a bumper sticker that says "going to church no more makes you a Christian than going to a garage makes you a car."

Sarah

[grey]

I live near the Alabama line. Guess who is going to make a habit of wearing the Gladiator jersey?

The dry county thing cracks me up. I was here when our ban got lifted to include wine (but still no liquor, trust me I have quite the stocked cabinet). While browsing through the new wine display at my little Ingles grocery store, I felt I was being stared at. I turned, and here was this dowdy woman in a long dress with her gray hair pulled tight into a bun at the back of her head, arms crossed, and shaking her head at me with an angry expression.

I could see she thought I was buying a one-way ticket to Hades.

I love to tell the locals that "oh yes, Jesus turned water into GRAPE JUICE."

[Mr. Bloom]

The 300,000 southern Baptists sign is before my time, but I think this is in the same vein. It's on I-65N just north of Montgomery (just past the Prattville exit).

I am familiar with that sign (right by the waterwheel), I'll be driving right past it on the way to Gulf Shores on Friday...not offended by it at all - again, Alabama will always have a very conservative political bias that is influenced by its conservative religious concentrations...I wasn't criticizing the billboard.

however, I am offended by the confederate memorial just south of Nashville on I-65...a much more blatant display for a very small and very contrary viewpoint ...

[PamNY]

Years ago there was a sign flat on the ground near the Knoxville, TN airport, placed so you'd see it if you looked out the airplane window. The sign, if I recall correctly, urged passengers to "Get Right with God."

I recently spent a lot of time in the South after being away for years, and I found the religious signage charming even though none of it represented my beliefs. Maybe it was just nostalgia.

I agree with Mr. Silver about the Confederate stuff.

[lo123]

I am familiar with that sign (right by the waterwheel), I'll be driving right past it on the way to Gulf Shores on Friday...not offended by it at all - again, Alabama will always have a very conservative political bias that is influenced by its conservative religious concentrations...I wasn't criticizing the billboard.

however, I am offended by the confederate memorial just south of Nashville on I-65...a much more blatant display for a very small and very contrary viewpoint ...

I'm not offended by the sign but rather by the attitudes that are so common here
This article just underscores what I'm talking about.

Yes it's a conservative state, but the hatred that still resides here is disturbing to this transplant. Especially when it's all in the name of 'religion' or 'good family values'

[Pedal Wench]

Pedal!! I'm shocked you rebel!

[skinimini]

[QUOTE=Mr. Silver;451659]OK, do I have Alabama stories!

In high school, I worked at the Jolly Ox restaurant (Brookwood Village location). It was actually "Steak and Ale", but Alabama had a law prohibiting the name of a libation in the name of a restaurant.

I remember the Jolly Ox restaurant--I had my first adult beverage there (actually several). When were you there?

I was raised in Birmingham until I left for college. I graduated from Berry High School in 1975. No family there at all now. I have quite a few stories as well (and fond memories). I'm so proud of being a southerner now, but in the '70s I wanted nothing more than to rid myself of the southern accent. I always say that at my college, I was diversity. I was the girl from Alabama.

I wish I had one of those Jerseys and I would do as Pedal did--make my way to the Alabama border on the Silver Comet! What fun!

[shootingstar]

I was raised in Birmingham until I left for college. I graduated from Berry High School in 1975. No family there at all now. I have quite a few stories as well (and fond memories). I'm so proud of being a southerner now, but in the '70s I wanted nothing more than to rid myself of the southern accent. I always say that at my college, I was diversity. I was the girl from Alabama.

It'll be a first for me..to meet someone raised in the Deep South once upon a time. Looking forward to seeing you, skinmini!

Was your diversity experience the same as mine?: 1 of 4 Canadians of Asian descent in nearly 1,000 university undergraduate students majoring in English literature at a large yuppie-oriented university in southern Ontario? (For Canadians, this was NOT Toronto. It was London, Ontario, early 1980's.) Of course, the rest were Caucasian..ok, maybe there was 1 student of Afro descent.

Amazingly, I even questioned once or twice during my studies why I was even part of that program since part of English literature canon requires understanding biblical allusions in major older works (pre-Victorian literature)...but that's digressing.

[KathiCville]

The ban fits soooo perfectly with a book I'm currently reading: PBS travel show host Rick Steves' Travel as a Political Act. He notes that U.S. squeamishness about forthright displays of naked bodies prompts laughter among our European cousins. He tells some funny stories about eye-opening encounters with nude sunbathers (not on the beach either!) and mixed-gender spas in Europe.....

[Crankin]

Thread drift: Shootingstar, your comment about questioning why you were part of a literature program that used a lot of religious/biblical allusions brought back a memory of a course I took in the 80s. After I got my master's in special ed, I took some summer courses to get certified in English. One was in American lit before 1850. I swear, I didn't get half the stuff the professor was discussing because it was all New Testament allusion. Although I wasn't an English major, I did have a minor in the subject, and I felt prepared when I started. One day, during a break I was feeling miserable and struck up a conversation with another student, and I discovered she also was not Christian and felt the same way.
Of course, this was the professor who thought I was a "19 year old single, pregnant student," when I was a 29 year old pregnant, married teacher with a graduate degree and several years of teaching experience. Yes, I looked young, but really.
I guess I know what values he had.

[shootingstar]

Thread drift: Shootingstar, your comment about questioning why you were part of a literature program that used a lot of religious/biblical allusions brought back a memory of a course I took in the 80s. After I got my master's in special ed, I took some summer courses to get certified in English. One was in American lit before 1850. I swear, I didn't get half the stuff the professor was discussing because it was all New Testament allusion. Although I wasn't an English major, I did have a minor in the subject, and I felt prepared when I started. One day, during a break I was feeling miserable and struck up a conversation with another student, and I discovered she also was not Christian and felt the same way.

Wish I had taken the time to seek out a fellow classmate in same boat of shared misery, but our English lit. classes were sufficiently large and overwhelmed with reading assignments, etc., I just didn't bother making the effort. I even tried to consider treating the bible what one of the English lit. profs. Northrop Frye lectured on and did write as a scholarly work, "Bible as Literature" . To read and analyze the Bible purely as a series of interconnected stories. I gave up somewhere after Genesis. After all, so many other required texts to conquer for courses.

Hence, Milton's "Paradise Lost" didn't pack the same powerful impact on me as I'm sure for others who knew their Bible well. Had I not gone to Sunday school classes for 4 years as a child, I would have been truly lost.

If discussion on the Bible seems so esoteric...just look at all the great English language literary works pre-Victorian and all the Western art (which I love looking at), great music prior to Romanticism, how much biblical allusions there are. To appreciate some of the stuff, one needs to understand abit of cultural background.

Ok. There is a connection to cycling. If there were times I felt I was one of the rare cyclists at work, that is absolutely pale in terms of feeling marginalized, compared to other life situations.

[Crankin]

I get it....

[Zen]

I agree with Mr. Silver about the Confederate stuff.

A memorial to honor dead soldiers? What's wrong with that? They were people. They were someones brother or son. Just because you don't agree with a "small and contrary viewpoint" as MS puts it, doesn't mean there should be no memorial.
It's part of this country's history.

[Zen]

Thanks Zen. Way to drag Missouri into it.

Honestly, I wondered is there no statue of Lady Justice. Ashcroft is an aside.

[Mr. Bloom]

A memorial to honor dead soldiers? What's wrong with that? They were people. They were someones brother or son. Just because you don't agree with a "small and contrary viewpoint" as MS puts it, doesn't mean there should be no memorial.
It's part of this country's history.

No, this one isn't a memorial to honor dead soldiers - it's a defiant, pistol raised general on a horse in honor of the confederacy. Initially, it also had a billboard stating that "The South will Rise Again"

But decide for yourself if you think that Nathan Bedford Forrest, surrounded by a ring of confederate flags is a memorial to him...and if the fact that it's made out of low cost fiberglass, rather than stone like HIS other monuments, is intended to make a low cost point...or memorialize him is not for me to know(the accompanying billboard is not pictured here...)


It's not a historic item...it's been there just a few years.

Sorry for the hijack!