The very BEST things about the state of Alabama.....

Our grand-doggy, Josefina...or Josie, or JoJo!


Some of the best things about the state are these:

1. They still have chain gangs and you will see crews of them working to clean up the interstate, cutting brush, doing road work, just cleaning up in general; with their "supervisors" watching over them from the bed of a truck, with their rifle very visible. Old fashioned? I think not. Their prison popluation is nothing like ours, and costs nothing like ours. How many years have we heard in Michigan that the prison system is one of the highest costs to the state??

2. Their county jail inmates work! AMAZING! They wash the county vehicles and school buses, their senior buses, handicapped transportation, etc. They also pick up the garbage...and may I ask who better to do it? And, the inmates want to get out so bad and smell the fresh air and see something other than those four block walls, so you know they're going to be on their best behavior!

3. The state has a very, very low property tax rate. Alabamaians know how to get a good return on their VERY LOW property tax dollars! And, if you wonder why, just look at the above two reasons....those are just a few!

4. Acess to public utilities is amazing! City water, with excellent water pressure, is even on top of the mountain where Jamie lives. She has access to broadband internet through her phone company, and has had for years....even though she lives miles up on the mountain, I can't get it here in the outskirts of Flushing! And like I said in my previous post, gas mains dot the countryside, and I do mean COUNTRYside. Way out in the middle of nowhere you can get natural gas! I have to buy propane and have for seventeen years, with NO hope, EVER of getting natural gas! Four miles from the nearest town, ONE mile from the nearest gas main!!

And, as a life-long yankee, I've never met a yankee yet who doesn't think they are highly superior in every way to those patriots who live in the south, but sometimes, I wonder. The state of Alabama is one of the fastest growing: in industry and in high-tech education and jobs. Because of low taxes and low bureacracy.

We've taxed ourselves into oblivion. And like the proverbial frog in the boiling water, we don't realize it until we leave our area and go to another state and take a good look around and talk to the people who live there. I know Alabama isn't perfect, there's room for inprovement in every state! But the basics are there and there's a lot we could learn from them. I won't even get into the road situation here in our state compared to theirs....!

Why exactly, is it that we have made it so that only unionized, government employees are the ones doing the dirty work? Why don't our prisoners grow their own food, make their own clothes and pick up our garbage on the interstates and on our curbs? Instead they have unionized food service and they sit wasting our dollars being non-productive members of society.

Why are people leaving our state in droves, and most of them going to the deep south? I wonder.....