Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
I poked a little fun at Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Larry Langford's "sackcloth and ashes" day of prayer to end crime in his city, but a reader pointed me to a PDF of the actual proclamation written by Langford; it's so riddled with grammatical errors that one wonders if it's not a parody. I swear to you that not a single letter or punctuation mark is changed in the passages below.
The City of Birmingham Like the City of Ninevah has experienced violence and murder that pails in comparison to the City of Ninevah in the Old Testament, Book of Jonah; and has become the fourth violent city per capital in the United States of America; and...
Holy cow. Does he not even have a secretary, one with perhaps an 8th grade education? There's hardly a grammatical error that he didn't commit in that paragraph. If this was turned in for a middle school English class, he would have been flunked. And it doesn't get any better:
Many residents of the City of Birmingham, like Jonah, who turned his back on Ninevah, the citizens of the City of Birmingham have not only turned their backs on God but also turned their backs on the freedoms that were won by and through the civil rights struggle; and...
That part was apparently vetted by the Department of Redundancy Department. This man is virtually illiterate and he's the mayor of a major American city. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go vomit.
Comments
At least he knows how to spell "Ninevah" correctly. Now for the easier words....
Posted by: Rev. AJB | May 1, 2008 9:47 AM
Wow, maybe he is from the Bizzaro Universe?
Posted by: Thethyme | May 1, 2008 9:48 AM
Maybe it's a clever petition for more funding for education programs.
Posted by: Eric | May 1, 2008 9:53 AM
Me fail English? That's unpossible!
(Perhaps he does have a secretary, who refused his/her services in the name of this unconstitutional project.)
Posted by: Jason Failes | May 1, 2008 9:57 AM
I sit corrected-the proper spelling is Nineveh. Can't even get that correct!
Posted by: Rev. AJB | May 1, 2008 10:03 AM
So is he saying that the crime rate in Birmingham is worse or better than in old Nineveh? And does he have stats from Nineveh to back that up? And what's the bucket for? (should be "pales").
This is a little worrying:
Which residents, and what are they doing? Go ahead and disapprove of my beliefs, or my sexuality or my hair length all you want, but when you start implying that it's my fault that some unrelated calamity is happening to the whole community, you've crossed a line into hate-mongering.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | May 1, 2008 10:33 AM
Er, and to add to the problem, where's the alleged Jonah in this parallel? I mean, the mayor can't set himself up as both the king of Nineveh and Jonah (actually, with this screed he'd make a much better Jonah; he didn't want anyone to really change their ways either, instead he wanted a mighty smiting of his enemies... and didn't get it...)
Can't these people even read the stories they are alleging to reproduce? sigh.
Posted by: kodiak | May 1, 2008 10:40 AM
Rev. AJB: I'm willing to give Larry the benefit of the doubt on the spelling of Nineveh, since it's a transliteration. Biblical Hebrew didn't even have vowels. There are enough other errors to make fun of - I mean, of which to make fun.
Posted by: ShavenYak | May 1, 2008 10:50 AM
I like the infinite regression. Apparently, the violence of both Birmingham and Nineveh "pail" in comparison to Nineveh, which of course "pails" in comparison to Nineveh, which . . .
Posted by: Taz | May 1, 2008 11:16 AM
In fairness, "Nineveh" is an Arab word and could be transliterated slightly different a number of ways. For example, there is a Kurdish city at the northern edge called "Dohuk," but it is also spelled "Duhok" and "Dihok." Of course, in Arabic script (a la Kurmanji-dialect Kurdish) it's written only one way.
Posted by: Brando | May 1, 2008 12:39 PM
And now Langford is in trouble with the SEC.
Posted by: Jim Lippard | May 1, 2008 12:45 PM
With Larry Langford, the fun just never stops. A huge headline across the top of this morning's Birmingham News says that our favorite mayor is in a lot of truh-buhl.
The Securities and Exchange Commission just filed a lawsuit against him, alleging that he accepted $156,000 in secret payments from a Montgomery investment banker who - just by pure coincidence, you understand - received $6.7 MILLION bucks of Jefferson County financial business. (Langford was a county commissioner before becoming mayor.)
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2008/05/birmingham_mayor_larry_langfor_11.html
Alas, this is a civil suit rather than a criminal suit, so it would take a separate criminal indictment to make Langford trade his Sackcloth and Ashes for Striped-Cloth and Ass-rape.
Posted by: EK | May 1, 2008 12:52 PM
This is embarassing. I live in the city this guy is the mayor of! Should I write a letter to him regarding his atrocious grammar?
Posted by: Rick | May 1, 2008 1:25 PM
If he's volunteering to get swallowed by a whale, I won't object.
Posted by: chancelikely | May 1, 2008 1:28 PM
LITERECY CAT IS AMAIZED AT UR PERFICK GRAHMAR
Posted by: reboho | May 1, 2008 1:53 PM
But it worked!
He prayed for a solution to the crime problem, and a few days later the SEC cracked down on corrupt politicians in the area. Yay, Jebus is taking criminals off the streets!
And, of course, one of them is Larry Langford.
Posted by: phantomreader42 | May 2, 2008 11:24 AM
Who said, "Religion is the last refuge of scoundrels."?
Posted by: Elizabeth | May 3, 2008 11:18 PM