Fearing duplication of topic and unable to zoom in on something I’m genuinely curious about or interested in, I came up with the idea to select a topic randomly.
I went to random.org and selected a number between 1 and 23 to use to find a volume of Encyclopedia Britannica. The number was 7 which got me to the “Daisy” through “Educational” book. It has 1028 pages, so that was the range for the next number. That number was 929. For safety I then used numbers 1-4 to select a portion of the page (the way the index works) but it was unnecessary since the whole page (almost) is dealing with “Economic Forecast.”
Well, Wikipedia has a ‘random page’ feature. I tried it just now and got Phenix City, Alabama (distribution of articles is highly skewed towards municipalities, I think).
That puts us well on the way to a legitimate discussion. We can examine the impact on American values of the Economic Forecast for Phenix City, Alabama.
(As a passing note, I was through Phenix City back in April! I also had some contact with Forecasting in my years of working, but it wasn’t as significant as the US Economy, just the sales of our products. Still I have some familiarity with both topics, just not quite to the expert level. That shouldn’t be a major hindrance in this forum, though, right?)
Well, Phenix City is right outside Ft. Benning, so if the pursuit of American Values keeps us invading other countries, then there will be a lot of paratroopers cycling through Benning, and adding their pay to the cities coffers via bars, pawnshops, auto dealers, etc. So the economic forecast for Phenix City is rosy.
Has anybody ever seen The Phenix City Story (1955)? Richard Kiley played the man who went on to become governor based on his pledge to clean up the town. The Columbus connection is a big one.
Anybody got kinfolks in Phenix City? My boss was from there.
Personally, I find this misspelling much more interesting than the area economy.
According to the town’s web site, it was named for the nearby Phoenix Mills. So why did they drop the “o”? If they were bent on shortening the name, why not drop “City”? “City” in city names always irritates me. It’s like having the State of Alabama State. It’s stupid.
The web site also says, in Keilloresque fashion, that Phenix City is the “gateway to eastern Alabama”. Who knew that eastern Alabama even had a gate?
I’m sure that if Phenix City, Alabama was to suddenly be replaced by a large hole extending to the center of the Earth that someday in the future my lawn would start to tilt in that direction. Other than that though, I really don’t feel very qualified to comment on the subject.