Homeland Horror

When I was in elementary and high school, the arrival of Summer meant vacation...and a list of books to read. Thanks to my sister and others, that's the kind of Summer I'm going to have! For my birthday she gave me two Irish History books. I've already made a good dent in "Paddy's Lament", which given horrific detail to the British inspired and extended Potato Famine in 1846-47. Fully a quarter of the Irish population died, many of starvation, others of related diseases, while all of the non-potato crops grown in Ireland were required to be shipped across the channel to England. It is teaching me the festering source of "The Troubles" that for so long disrupted Irish life. Thomas Gallagher's book makes me wonder why there were no genocide trials against England, and proud to hold dual-citizenship in honor of my ancestors who somehow survived.

H.S. Dropout$

Steve Suitts, the Vice President of the Southern Education Foundation in Atlanta, was our guest on Friday night's FTR. You may want to catch his comments on the Foundation's report about the economic impact of High School dropouts. The Press-Register's Brian Lyman and the Western Star's Dale Jones were panelists, and we had a lively discussion of the GOP charges that Democrats are trying to hijack the Alabama Republican Primary for State BOE.

The program, like many APT shows, will be online by Monday on the video page.

Media

When "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception" by Scott McClellan came out this week, including his not very new charge that the media was asleep at the wheel during the lead-up the war in Iraq, NBC's Brian Williams spent more than three minutes "interviewing" his predecessor, Tom Brokaw. The length of the interview was in itself amazing...the average "sound bite" in TV is currently seven seconds...but it was the lack of any real questions that stood out. Williams did not ask about the red white and blue peacocks NBC used, about the immediate adoption by NBC and almost all of the media of the Bush Administrations code words "War On Terror" and "Operations Such and Such" and the use of military themed music for the constant "Special Reports". NBC and the other nets made it clear they backed the war, by omission and by inclusion: omission of the hard questions that a doubting media is suppose to ask every administration, even in war time, and inclusion by taking on the trappings of a war operation.
We know now that the Pentagon worked hard to make sure the retired Generals who "explained the war" to the network audiences stayed on the party line. Now one of the men who was in charge in the White House press room admits he himself saw the unwillingness of reporters to do their jobs.

Today's New York Times includes a story that quotes Katie Couric as agreeing with the criticism.

[Side note: several of my posts have been critical of NBC. That's partly a function of my viewing habits. I have no reason to doubt that similar criticism would be appropriate for each of the network and many local news operations with other net affiliations.]

Primary Sample Ballots

Since Alabama's Presidential Primary was moved, there's not a lot to consider in Tuesday's state primary election day other than the two open congressional seats. If you want to see a sample ballot for either party, you'll find one for the Democratic Primary here, and for the Republican Primary here. Polls are open, as is usual now, from 7:00am till 7:00pm.

I Hear Dead People

Driving back from Oneonta this morning after speaking at the Heritage Golf Club to a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, I was listening to a variety of North Alabama radio stations, including one that featured a daily reading of obituaries. Funeral Directors would call in to a recording device and read a list of the folks who had passed, with details of their wakes and funerals. Each call was followed by another, for a relatively long roll call of those who had died. It reminded me of working at WJLK Radio in Asbury Park about 1972-73. The station was owned by a newspaper, and almost all of the paper content ended up on air at one point or another. The "Radio Voice of the Asbury Park Press" was how they promoted it. And yes, the obituaries were a daily presence. I had frankly forgotten that feature, something you'll find on small town local radio, unlike the corporate product offered by most stations in the larger cities. It was great to meet so many folks at the Chamber Breakfast, the kind of folks who you would meet at just about any chamber anywhere in the U.S....a Probate Judge, A Police Chief, lots of small business owners, and Chamber president Charles Carr and his administrative assistant, Aimee Dobbs, who invited me to speak and to whom I am grate full for the opportunity! They're pushing economic development in a big way in Blount County, so watch out neighboring counties!

Here Comes Blount County...

The folks at the Blount-Oneonta Chamber of Commerce have been kind enough to invite me to speak at their monthly breakfast meeting on Wednesday, and I am truly looking forward to the opportunity. As usual, The Media will be the main course, with a side dish of Legislature. It will be nice to get away from the Capitol for a while to picturesque Blount County...watch for some photos and a report here by Thursday morning!

Is The Democratic primary race over now?

Tonight's NBC network newscast included a three minute report on the presidential race, but not a single mention of Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton. The report exclusively focused on Senators Obama and McCain. Does that mean the race between her and Democratic Sen. Barrack Obama is over? Seemed odd in that long of a report to exclude her. Plus, the New York Times tonight ran a Reuters campaign story that mentioned Sen. Clinton once in a short paragraph that seemed to be included just to avoid the complete absence of the New York Senator displayed in the NBC story.

Kan U raed tihs?

My sister shared this with us the other day, and I'm returning the favor for those of you who may not have seen it!

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too. Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghi t pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

###

Having been a miserable speller most of my life (Heck, if I could spell I'd be working for a newspaper!) I really appreciated this exercise, which I easily passed, by the way. Did you? The Homer Simpson widget can be found here...he'll write whatever you want on the board!

AEA Chief on FTR Friday

Dr. Paul Hubbert will be the newsmaker guest on FTR this Friday. His apperance comes after the complete failure of the Legislature to agree on an Education budget. FTR airs statewide at 8:00pm on Fridy and is repeated at 1:00pm on Sunday.

Do Dah Day Duh

Forgot to post a few pix and mention Do Dah Day in Birmingham this past Saturday. GREAT weather and a great crowd...pets from goats to turtles to, of course, a LOT of dogs. Always a lot of fun!

The Last (** KAPOW!!!**) Day

If you're hanging out in the Statehouse today, keep an eye on Alabama Public Television Videographer Adam Vincent...he may be seeing if he can repeat last year's coup of catching Senator Charles Bishop punching Senator Lowell Barron. Nah, probably won't happen, but all eyes will be on several bills that can still win passage today. Rep. John Knight is quoted in The Birmingham News regarding his measure to remove the state sales tax on food: "I don't see how the governor and the Republicans can tell the people of this state they don't want to give them a tax cut," said Knight. "I don't see how they can look their constituents in the face and tell them they killed this bill." Legislators will also consider the bill adding sexual orientation to the existing Alabama Hate Crime law, and then there's the matter of the Education Budget. There's some talk about a Special Session for that spending plan, allowing the governor to isolate the measure.

Award Winning Design

If you watched the APT program I produced about the state entrepreneurs competing to have their Internet-based business launched, you may have been struck by the design of the building in which the competition was held...Innovation Depot in downtown Birmingham. It's in an old Sears that i remember shopping in when I first moved to Birmingham in '76. I found out after the fact that the project to turn the old department store into the business incubator was done by my friend Alan Tischanski, an architect with Williams Blackstock in Birmingham! To quote their news release: "WB won an Honor Award for the project in the 2008 States AIA Design Awards Competition! There were 158 entries and 11 awards in this year’s competition, which was judged by a group from Chicago. The awards were presented at the AIA’s national convention in Boston." Great work Alan!!!

Friedman - Middle East

From Thomas Friedman's column in this morning's NY Times:

The Bush team...in eight years has managed to put America in the unique position in the Middle East where it is “not liked, not feared and not respected,” writes Aaron David Miller, a former Mideast negotiator under both Republican and Democratic administrations, in his provocative new book on the peace process, titled “The Much Too Promised Land.”
“We stumbled for eight years under Bill Clinton over how to make peace in the Middle East, and then we stumbled for eight years under George Bush over how to make war there,” said Mr. Miller, and the result is “an America that is trapped in a region which it cannot fix and it cannot abandon.”

Great Design (with a message too)

I'm seriously not taking a position about the China/Tibet issue, but I love good design, and this is certainly an example of it.

ARF!

Do Dah Day snuck up on me this year...it's this Saturday, and as an official DDD Judge-For-Life, I'll be in place helping to select winners in some of the catagories of pets in the annual parade. Look for me on the judges stand at Rhodes Park about 11:00 a.m. Here's the link to the official event site!

L2D - Viewer Memories

Among the viewer comments about the "License To Drive" broadcast on Friday was this gem from "Charley", who pointed out that there was Drivers' Education long before the 1970's statewide start in the county where he went to school...

"Yes, I graduated from Tuscaloosa High in 1959. Coach Billy Henderson was the instructor of the drivers ed program. A local auto dealer contributed a new car each year for the drivers ed use. We students actually drove the car in "city" traffic. Traffic was not nearly so hectic then as it is now.

By the way, I listened to The Tim Lennox show on talk radio in Jefferson County for lots of years. You went away for a short span, then you were back. I always listened from my car. I delivered a rural mail route...so, you were my only company in the afternoons. Paul Harvey at noon was also good company.

I don't have a clue how a Yankee boy like you fit into Birmingham radio so well, but you did, and that is to your credit."

Though I was in fact born a Yankee, I am happy to report that I was recently proclaimed a true Southerner by the one and only Bobby Horton, the Birmingham musician who's fine work is heard on Ken Burns "Civil War" and "Baseball" and more. And if Bobby's endorsement isn't enough, then I don't know what is. (-:

License To Drive

The "Alabama Story" segment I've mentioned called "License To Drive" is now online here.

Legislative Audio Archives

Former Libertarian Candidate for Governor Loretta Nall has started a new blog offering audio clips of Legislative "action"...and inaction (as in during those intentional slowdowns called filibusters). You can always listen to the entire session's audio online, of course, but Loretta doing the heavy lifting here and selecting some of high and low lights for your edification and enjoyment.

A Lesson in Being #1

Own a 1995-2000 Toyota Tacoma pickup? The New York Times reports today that Toyota is offering to buy back as many as 813,000 of them because the frames are rusting badly and can't be repaired. On top of that they'll pay 1.5 time the Blue Book value. Now that's putting customers up top. The transmission on my current vehicle (I'll refrain from naming the American manufacturer) failed at 33,0000..which would have been covered by the warranty except that the car was 5 years old at the time. The "Company" not only offered me squat, they weren't even interested in hearing what part my mechanic found to have failed. It's the last vehicle I'll ever buy from that company...which by the way was offering a "free automatic transmission" for the 2008 model of my car. I can understand why it was being offered free. You'll have to change it out very very soon.

License To Drive -Friday 7:00pm

A reminder that the Alabama Story I produced titled "License To Drive" airs Friday night at 7:00pm. The hour long piece includes students from Lee High School in Montgomery and Wetumpka High School. If you know someone with a teen aged child, you might pass this along. They should find it worth watching with or without their child.

Roadside Distractions

The Alabama Department of Transportation has started removing roadside memorials constructed by relatives of accident victims. The Department is leaving it up to the regional District Engineers to decide if they'll do the same in other parts of the state. That action will be one of the topics we discuss on this week's For The Record at 8:00pm Friday on APT. Though they can be distracting, the real distractions along the state's roads are billboards. "Litter on a stick" is the name detractors gave to them years ago. As Associated Press story about Vermont today reports "Alaska, Hawaii and Maine are the only other states that ban billboards. Vermont's ban took effect in 1968, prohibiting new billboards and giving the owners of existing ones five years to remove them." I've never been a fan of the huge signs, and challenge you to take a photo of a roadway in your neighborhood, PhotoShop out the billboards, and ask yourself which looks better. Hands down, the new view wins. I've always felt the same way about power lines. Take a photo of almost any intersection and see how much more friendly the view is when the lines are removed. If it's a bad idea, why do they bury the lines in new subdivisions? Back to the boards: you can try the opposite too...take a nice woods view and add a few billboards. Last yearABC 33/40 in Birmingham did a story about your tax dollars paying for 76 billboards featuring a big photo of the Governor...and don't get me started about the electronic boards that change messages every few seconds. Distracting? Come on. By design they are trying to get drivers to look away from the road. If they're OK for a commercial purpose, what's so wrong with the little memorials?

The Forever Office

I don't have any particular dislike for the U.S. Post Office, though like many government agencies I've had my share of minor run-ins. But during a stop for stamps yesterday I found myself wondering why my local Post Office looks so, well, depressing. I had time to ponder because there was one clerk at the counter, though it was just before Noon and a hefty line of customers was waiting. One the way in I had held the door for a woman who was carrying a batch of monopoly-game sized packages. "Mother's Day gifts?" asked another customer. "No, stuff I sold on e-bay" she responded proudly. She made several trips out to her car, and when her final fifteen or twenty packages were piled up, I was glad I was not the person behind her in line. Still waiting for my stamps, I had lots of time to look around. On just about every available surface there were signs telling customers what to do and not do. Others tried to convince us to become stamp collectors. Several announce that cash customers must have exact change ("Just for a while", the clerk explains, "too many people with $20 bills.") Many of the signs are hand written, giving the place an amateur look...like a kid's Cool-Aid stand rather than a retail establishment. The signs add to a general look of squalor. The credit card readers are plastered with (hand written) signs. The only place where customers can fill out forms is a narrow counter a foot away from the line that is now snaking towards the door. No additional help appears, and I feel even sorrier for the customers who are behind Monopoly Woman and her mountain of packages. Today's Montgomery Advertiser features a story on page one about the end of sales of the 41-cent "Forever Stamp", the one that you can buy today and it will be good to mailing a letter forever, regardless of price increases over the years. The price goes up to 42-cents on Saturday. Meanwhile, back in the P.O., there was one more customer in front of me, and she was renting a P.O. Box. If banks operated this way, I thought, you might find yourself waiting in line to make a deposit behind someone applying for a car loan. "Forever Stamp" was starting to take on a different meaning. Eventually I got to the counter, bought my book of not-forever stamps and left, wondering why the Post Office is so customer-unfriendly in its retail environment at the same time that fewer and fewer people are using mail. I remembered asking a Birmingham Postmaster during a 1980's radio show if he was worried about the new "fax" technology. He said he wasn't, that people would always need to use the U.S. Mail. Always. As in Forever. At the bottom of the news release announcing the Forever Stamp is a statement describing the Postal Service: "An independent federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that visits 146 million homes and businesses, six days a week." And we might add, it is the only service to do so because, by law, no one is allowed to compete. As in, Monopoly.

Food Tax Compromise?

New York Times Regional Newspapers reporter Dana Beyerle is reporting on a possible compromise in the legislative fight over eliminating the food tax. The story suggests Gov. Riley is proposing eliminating all but one cent of the state tax in return for allowing a 200% deduction on business taxes for small companies that provide health insurance for employees. A public vote on the annual vs every-four-years property appraisal change is also in the mix. There are just three meeting days left in the session, which must end by May 19th.

Auburn/Immigration Roundtable

The discussion about immigration issues on the Auburn University campus went well! The event was sponsored by the University's Center For Governmental Services, and I thank Don-Terry Veal, Ph.D. for inviting me to moderate. We managed to address many of the components of the issue, including amnesty, the impact on local and county governments, and possible solutions. Everyone seemed to agree any real solution has to come from the Federal Government, but there was also some consensus that Alabama can't sit around and wait for the Feds to take action. Sen. Scott Beason was on the panel...his legislation to hold companies responsible for making sure their hires are in the U.S. legally is dead for the session.