Pyramid Scheme
Jim Sullivan
Since
the dawn of time, municipal citizens have been asked to pay for sports
stadiums or other such community buildings. Usually given in support
of such a request is the claim that such a structure, with an associated
team or other attraction, will draw people to visit the facility.
Maybe people and companies will even move to the community. That,
it's pointed out, will mean more business, tax revenue, and profits for
everyone. Well, maybe not for everyone.
In
recent decades, the push has been for sports stadiums having humongous
seating capacity, perfect sports conditions, state-of-the-art grounds,
and retractable domes. Such features, however, cause construction
costs to soar.
Using
revenue money to build such arenas is, as ever, the root problem.
Citizens will ask, "Why should taxpayers foot the bill for a sports facility
when all of the profits go not to paying back the community or to maintaining
the arena but directly into the overly large and already bulging pockets
of the team's owners?" Moreover, after the taxpayers have built the
stadium at their own expense, what's to keep the team franchise in the
city? The short and only answer is "Nothing!" Other communities,
caught up in the desire to have a sports group frequently and sometimes
rashly offer another town's team the moon and more. Then the club
moves to a new location, abandoning established fans and leaving behind
an existing sports structure.
It
was recently discovered that, back in old Egypt, some pharaohs advanced
the same kind of come-on. King Mut, short (the name, not the pharaoh)
for King Mutizuma IV offered to be buried in any city along the Nile River
that would pay for his tomb, a giant pyramid of the size and opulence of
the Great Pyramids of Giza. All seven communities along the Nile
competed. City denizens knew that a community with such a pyramid
would grow and prosper from pilgrimages and tourism. Industry would
be attracted because the place would have the best and smoothest camel
trails, thanks to all of the tourist caravans coming and going. That
would make the importation of supplies and industrial distribution better
there than in lesser developed communities.
However,
danger not unlike that of modem situations lurked behind the sand dunes.
After building the pyramid, how could a community be sure that a pharaoh's
body would be entombed there and not someplace else? What would prevent
the royal family from removing the deceased pharaoh's body and relocating
it in a competing city willing to build an even bigger pyramid with space
for future dead pharaohs?
Apparently,
according to recently excavated ancient clay tablets buried in the sand
lo these many years, Memphis, not far from Aspville, won the competition.
King Mut was interred in his huge, new pyramid in Memphis. Fortunately
for him, it was after he'd gotten sick and died. Memphis, however,
went broke a few years later due to a major flood and was unable to pay
its health insurance premiums, city employee pension plan, or pyramid debt.
Things haven't changed much since those ancient days. In any case,
Memphis went downhill from there. Consequently, King Mut's family
surreptitiously shanghaied the buried pharaoh and re-entombed him in a
newer, bigger (with a sun deck no less) pyramid in beautiful downtown Aspville,
by then a thriving city. Memphis, left high and dry after the flood
receded, had among many other civic problems an empty pyramid to fill.
That's why today, the mummy of al-Smartipants (an approximate translation
of his name), the Egyptian stone mason and part-time clown, came to be
buried there. As with his various humor gigs, he was just filling
in but it proved to be his longest engagement. He's still there and
still bringing them in.
You
can see that having a municipality use tax money to pay for a facility
to attract a baseball team or a football team or, as in Egypt's case, the
burial of a pharaoh, has gone on for centuries. However, nothing
is forever. Maybe the solution to the problem is, a la the Green
Bay Packers, for city residents to own the sports team or the pharaoh's
body. Then, either could be kept in one place permanently.![10x5 Page Background GIF Image](../../Images/10x5_Page_Background.gif)
Please use the enclosed envelope to send a contribution.
I prefer cash. For checks or money orders, please inquire.
For PayPal payments, use editor@frontiersman.my3website.net.
Back issues are available at http://frontiersman.my3website.net/.
Also see Pharos at http://pharos.my3website.net.
May 2007 |
Frontiersman, 1510
North 22nd Drive, Show Low, Arizona 85901 |
Page
3 |
|