One positive for bingo: It wakes up the masses

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April 16, 2010

By Melanie Patterson CNHI The North Jefferson News Fri Apr 16, 2010, 08:00 AM CDT

COMMENTARY — To bingo or not to bingo? Who would have ever thought the question would have gone this far in Alabama?

North Jefferson County is not immune to the statewide debate. Just last week, state and county officials raided a tiny, inconspicuous-looking bingo hall just north of Gardendale.

And the Town of Kimberly was embroiled in the issue late last year when an organization tried to get the town to issue it a business license for a bingo hall. Talk about heated — almost as many people showed up to voice their opinions about a bingo hall in Kimberly as they did a few months previously to oppose a mine operation starting up on the outskirts of the little town.

People who discuss such things ask why it takes a hot-button issue like bingo or mining, or in the case of Gardendale, dog ordinances, to bring people out of their complacency? Why don’t they care about the issues all the time, even when the issues are less controversial?

We tend to think apathy, especially voter apathy, is a new trait in the U.S.A., but that is far from the truth. I was reading recently about early American leaders finally changing voting laws to make them more equitable, rather than allowing only free white men vote — and then only if they had a certain amount of property. Shocking though it may seem, many people who suddenly had the right to vote, did not do so.

Apathy is extremely frustrating to elected leaders and to people who care about the big picture.

The bingo issue has done one thing if nothing else: It has gotten people talking. It has awakened the people from their apathetic slumber.

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One positive for bingo: It wakes up the masses

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