Who will be Democratic Senator # 61?

The party switching of Arlen Spector got me thinking about who might be next, and the first name that came to mind is Alabama's own Richard Shelby. After all, he knows how it works, having switched his own allegiance from Democrat to Republican on November 9, 1994. That was just one day after voters elected him as a Democrat, the election in which Republicans gained a Senate majority. At least Spector is willing to change his stripes before asking voters for another term. Shelby actually contributed $10,000 to Spector's reelection campaign, but while some other U.S. Senators are taking Spector up on his offer to refund those donations, Shelby is not. Been there, done that. Shelby made the same offer in 1994, several weeks after the election, after at least one radio talk-show host (that would be me) pushed him to do just that.

ANOTHER Candidate?

Will the last Republican to announce as a candidate for Governor please turn off the lights? The Birmingham News has another name semi-tossed into the ring...someone who, like the others, says he is being "encouraged" to run. Trial Balooning 101.

House overrides Riley Veto

On the question of Shelby County and Sunday liquor sales, The Birmingham News reports that the House voted to override Bob Riley's veto. Now the bill goes to the Senate for consideration. Riley insists the bill is unconstitutional.

[UPDATE: Chek out Scott Stantis' cartoon on the subject.]

Happy Anniversary to me.

Today is not the kind of anniversary anybody but me will care about, but it was 40 years ago today that I made my first broadcast. It was on WBAB-AM Radio in Babylon, New York, a "graveyard shift" from Midnight till 6:00am on a weekend. That's about the deadest air shift there is. The station's signal at night was so limited that my best friends in Queens drove further out onto Long Island to get close enough to hear me, and even then they had to get out of the car and hold a portable radio up in the air! I'm not really a pack rat, but I somehow managed to hold onto the little "log" I started that first night of my time on-air. That's it below. The "Happening Sound" indeed. (-: A few years ago I came across another veteran of WBAB Radio here in Alabama...Bill Canary, the BCA/GOP heavy who's wife, U.S. Attorney Leura Canary, was in the middle of the Siegelman prosecution. Bill worked at the station not too long after me. Small world! I ran into Bill on election day (the primary last year, I think) and he was nice enough to say he genuinely missed "For The Record". 40 years sounds like a very long time, but I gotta tell you this: I'm as good a journalist as I've ever been. My health is excellent (I left behind four months worth of sick time when I left APT) and I'm a long way from retiring. I've been blessed to work these past four decades in a field I love, and I'm very much ready, willing, and able to begin my next chapter.

Swine Flu Update

Major increase in the level of concern by World Health Organization....raising the level of alert to the next highest level...#5... a level never used before. The next level means a pandemic is underway. Earlier tonight President Obama said he has asked Congress for an additional $1.5 Billion to fight what is now almost certainly going to be a pandemic. [UPDATE: Two "probable" cases of swine flu in North Alabama, says Alabama Department of Public Health. Public events being cancelled. Huntsville Times publishes flu FAQ.]

Another face in the crowded GOP field?

AP is reporting Hoover Mayor Tony Petelos may join the ranks of candidates seeking the Republican nomination for Governor. 1st question for Mr. Mayor: where do you stand on the previously posted decision by Governor Riley to veto the Shelby County Sunday liquor bill?

Get Your Swine Flu Shot! Or Else!

1976 Public Service Announcement...of course 500 people who did as recommended ended up getting quite ill, and 35 died (as previously posted). Thanks to Wade Kwon for pointing me to this YouTube video.

Smoggy Birmingham

The annual report on dirty air from the American Lung Association ranks Birmingham 20th in the U-S...with the #1 (i.e. dirtiest) city being Los Angeles. But as anyone who lived in Birmingham in the 20th Century knows, it used to be a lot worse. The photo on left was taken from the WERC traffic copter about 1978. I suspect that's West, near Fairfield and the U.S. Steel plant. But the view wasn't any better looking East or South or any direction. The late Tommy Charles used to joke that those were jobs in the air, not pollution. What's troubling about the Lung Association report is the trend. Look at this graph:

The number of unhealthy air days is heading back upward after a decline that started in 2000.

For folks with breathing disorders, this is seriously bad news. The heck with swine flu. Every day is a battle. There are places online where you can see daily air quality reports and forecasts.

[This is a somewhat ironic posting, considering he beautiful blue-sky photo in Birmingham at top right now!]

Latinos are a target

The Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center is out with a report today that says Latinos here in the South are abused, and the "anti-immigrant" climate is partly to blame. The reports suggests all Latinos are potential victims, regardless of their citizenship status. Read the report here.

UA Conflict

the "Old South" controversy on the UA campus is flaring again...this time a mostly black sorority wants the University to eliminate the Kappa Alpha annual parade, which paused in front of their house last week. Members dress in confederate costumes, which the Alpha Kappa Alpha members say are reminders of "Old South racism." Stan Diel has details in the Birmingham News. Kappa Alpha was founded immediately after the Civil War. Alpha Kappa Alpha dates to 1908

[UPDATE: May 9, 2009...Frat apologizes.]

Voting Rights (and Wrongs)

On the 100th day of the Obama Administration, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a challenge to part of the Voting Rights Act. It's the part that requires some places, including all of Alabama, to get U.S. Justice Department clearance before making any changes to voting procedures. The GOP in Alabama has argued for years that we Alabamians have made enough progress to be removed from the chains of Section 5 of the Act. The New York Daily News editorializes against overturning Section 5 this morning by arguing that the results of the 2008 General Election...the one that saw the first African-American President elected...prove it is still needed:

"...when you examine voting patterns, it's clear not a lot has changed since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. In Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, President Obama received only 15% of the white vote. In states not covered by Section 5, he received 47%."

Before you jump all over "those Yankees", remember that three of New York City's five Boroughs are also covered by the Act, including the Bronx where I was born. They do have a dog in the fight. But is President Obama's failure to win a larger percentage of votes in Alabama de facto evidence of racism? That's a question African-American Rep. Artur Davis obviously answers with a "no". He is, after all, running for Alabama Governor.

Good News! Good News!

How starved are we for some good economic news? Here's the headline and lead sentence of a story in some papers this morning: April 29, 2009 Signs hint home prices hitting bottom By J.W. ElphinstoneThe Associated Press NEW YORK -- In another sign the housing crisis could be reaching the bottom, home prices dropped sharply in February, but for the first time in 25 months the decline was not a record. Wow! Imagine that! We're still in the gutter, but the rate at which we're sinking into the mud isn't a record! Hooray!!! Actually, two houses have gone on the market on my block in recent months, and both sold in a matter of weeks, so I'm not personally feeling the real estate disaster. But it was close. I can't tell you how many times in recent years I considered buying an investment property. Hey! Interest rates were really low and values kept increasing...there, as they say, but for the grace...Actually-- especially for first time buyers-- this really is a great time to get into the housing market. They don't have the burden of selling a suddenly much less valuable home, and interest rates are great....

Riley's no-call for alcohol

You just have to wonder sometimes. As you may have read by now, The Guv has decided to veto a bill that would have allowed some Shelby County restaurants to continue serving Alcohol on Sundays. The veto may be overridden by legislators as quickly as Thursday. The Shelby County Reporter quotes Riley as saying the bill is unconstitutional and that's why he's issued a veto. The paper also quotes sponsor Rep. Jimmy Martin (D-Clanton): "He said it's unconstitutional, but it's not unconstitutional until the courts rule on it. The only thing I tried to do was give the people of small towns the right to vote on the sale of alcoholic beverages. Other places, with 7,000 residents and above, already have that option."

JumpStart Update

The new tabloid edition of the Monday Anniston Star is going to be delayed a week...instead of this coming Monday May 4, it will be the following Monday, May 11.

Swine Flu Media OD?

Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post this morning quotes a Media insider as concluding coverage of the swine flu story is overblown: "Of course we're doing too much to scare people," said Mark Feldstein, a former correspondent for NBC, ABC and CNN who teaches journalism at George Washington University." Heck, I even blogged about the flu the other day. Kurtz suggests Cable TV News operations and their 24/7 voracious appetite for news are responsible for the overkill.

But put yourself in the shoes of a TV News Director...are you supposed to ignore the story? How much is too much? The media here in Montgomery was full of reassuring comments from the Alabama Farmer's Federation that Alabama Pork products are perfectly safe (though Russia on Sunday announced it would stop importing raw pork from the state...a fact one local TV story I saw ignored.) Dr. Don Williamson, head of the Alabama Dept. of Public Health, has been all over TV, answering sometimes dumb questions calmly and professionally.

People will make decisions about the flu story based on one thing and one thing alone. Will a particular activity potentially endanger their family? ALFA and the ADPH and the UN be damned. They'll avoid traveling to Mexico or eating pork or going out too much in public...family first.

[UPDATE: Note this 4/30/08 story about Vice President Biden's advice to his family!]

Hate for The Host

Have you ever disliked a radio or TV talk-show host so much that you write management? Is there someone on-air now who will make you immediately change channels when they come on? (I know for sure there are viewers/listeners who did it when I came on radio or TV, so it's only fair that I get to take a shot now, no?) My current least favorite person is Rick Sanchez on CNN. Oh, Wolf Blitzer can be annoying sometimes, and I completely avoid Lou Dobbs. But there is something absolutely grating about Sanchez' delivery and style. (From his blog: "Rick's newscast is not a CNN newscast…it's YOUR newscast!) Let me twitter him a barf. I can't change channels fast enough. Am I the only one? Who makes your blood boil? Speaking of CNN, there's a Times story about their reduced ratings, pointing a finger at the fact that they are more middle of the road than MSNBC or FOX. Being opinionated, apparently, pays. From the story: “I think there’s more than ever a need for a source of reliable, unbiased news,” Mr. Klein (Jon Klein, President of the CNN Domestic Network) said. But the (unnamed) veteran CNN correspondent suggested that prime time might demand something more: “It’s not sexy to be in the middle.

Sports Car Fever

In the mid-1980's Pontiac came out with a new sporty car called the Fiero and I was smitten (OK, my first car was a Pinto, so give me a break!) My Fiero, a GT model, was give-me-a-ticket-red. The little car was, well, little! They were two-seaters and had a trunk that forced owners to be very creative in packing bags. Each of the bucket seats included stereo speakers built in to headrest, kinda like external headphones. The Fiero was totally impractical for most trips, but it was a blast to drive. Someone relieved me of it from my own backyard in 1988. Police later found it burned somewhere in West Birmingham. I hope they at least burned their fingers torching it. It came to mind today, of course, because the Pontiac brand is being torched by GM, one in a string of steps the automaker is taking in its quest to become, if not a moneymaker, at least not such a loser.

Where In The World is Larry?

You may recall the controversy over Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford's place of residence. There was a suit filed over the issue of him living in Fairfield while running for Mayor of Birmingham. He promised he would move to Birmingham, and the judge ruled in his favor. He won the election. So where does Hiz Honner live now? Watch Kyle Whitmire's video blog. Kyle writes for Birmingham Weekly.

MMMM * #39 - TABLOID! TABLOID!

OK, sorry for shouting. It just seems that the word "tabloid" calls for more typological volume than usual. Starting next Monday, readers of the Anniston Star will have to get used to that newspaper format (without any extra tabloid type volume) one day a week. Each Monday, The Star will be printed in tabloid size with a new name too. Read about it here...on the blog Star Editor Bob Davis writes. Like every newspaper everywhere, The Star has been struggling with the titanic forces pulling and pushing the industry. They hope the new shape and size and focus of the Monday paper...called JumpStart...will be at least a start toward addressing the new newspaper landscape. JumpStart will for forward looking, featuring stories about what's ahead for the week [as opposed to most Monday newspapers, which by necessity focus back on news from the weekend]. The Tuesday - Sunday papers will remain the same, but there are other positive changes ahead. Anytime any publisher tries something new these days a lot of other publishers watch carefully to see if it works, and I'm sure that's what will happen here. Good luck Star folks!

[*The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this blog.]

Swine Flu

So far, no cases in Alabama, but that's most certainly going to change. Modern traveling has all but assured an infection in one part of the world will spread quickly, so it's just a matter of time before we have our first case. The big question today seems to be is why the outbreak is so much more deadly in Mexico than it is here in the United States. While there are no Alabama cases, eight students at a high school in New York City have been diagnosed. Ironically, for me anyway, St. Francis Prep is housed in the same building that was home to the high school from which I graduated. The Alabama Department of Public Health has links to all the information you may need regarding the outbreak, and what precautions can be taken. When I moved to Alabama in 1976, another outbreak of the disease was underway and a lot of folks, myself included, received shots to "protect us" from the virus. Turned out some people were mortally allergic to the shots themselves and some 25 Americans died from Guillain-Barre disease. The shots were given in public locations...I remember going to a health department set-up in Century Plaza for mine. That's President Gerald Ford getting his shot that year. A 1918 outbreak killed as many as 50-Million people worldwide. In the U.S., it infected 28 percent of the population and killed 675,000. There's never a good time for a pandemic, but come on, don't we have enough on our plate already?

An Honor Well Deserved

This morning's Montgomery Advertiser has a column by Alvin Benn about two people who could be "Exhibit A" in favor of the survival of newspapers. Goodloe and Jean Sutton run the small-town newspaper, The Democrat-Reporter in Linden. But their achievements are strictly big-city daily. The Suttons were named Community Journalists of the year by the Auburn University Journalism Advisory Council on Friday. The new-media crowd can beat down on the MSM all they want. Till they're willing to do the hard work needed for Sutton style journalism, they'll be second-string. Congratulations Goodloe and (posthumously) Jean!

Ya'll Come To a Party!

Kim Chandler and Charles Dean are reporting in today's Birmingham News that AG Troy King attended a party by the developers of Country Crossing three months before he issued an opinion that the development would quality for a BINGO permit once it was 70% complete. It was an opinion the developers had sought. King's name was on the invitation, along with two country music stars. The biggest surprise here isn't that the News has the anti-King story or that King attended the party. It's that King himself wasn't asked to perform. Remember he sent about two-dozen friends a CD of himself performing a post-mortem duet with Johnny Cash of the song "My Elusive Dreams". The producer of that song was Billy Sherrill, who met King at a birthday party for George Jones in 2007. Soon thereafter, King recorded new lyrics with a chorus and Sherrill mixed the AG in to make it sound like a Cash/King duet. Oh, and the story in this morning's News reports that George Jones was one of the other country stars on the invitation to the Country Crossings party. I'm not a fan of those talkradioesque comments newspapers encourage after their stories these days, mostly because, like talk radio, comments are anonymous. But read the lengthy one by the supposed member of the Alabama GOP executive committee. Too bad the writer is too afraid to say what he thinks under his own name, instead of hiding behind the anonymity of the new-media web. [Note: I wanted to post the 30 second clip of the song that was circulating on the net a year ago, but it was pulled from YouTube after the Johnny Cash estate complained. Their complaint was a legal one, but it might just as well have been based on the quality of the performance, which was truly miserable.] [UPDATE: See comments.]

F*R*I*E*N*D*S

One of the most e-mailed stories in the Times is the one about how great having a large circle of friends is for your well-being. I'm all for friendship, but I'm also a firm believer that there is a strict limit on the number of real friends anyone can have at one time. And it's about five. True friendship is a time consuming (though rewarding) activity. People who have five hundred "friends' on their Facebook account are kidding themselves. I'll bet they can't name more than ten or fifteen of them, and provide enough information for a eulogy for more than a half dozen. I believe there is a circle around you that will allow you to nurture and love and care for no more than those five folks. Everyone else is in an outer circle. Doesn't mean you don't love 'em. doesn't mean you wouldn't do anything for 'em. But for most of every day of your existence, they may as well not exist. If someone in your real friend inner circle dies, or you have a terrible fight, they can be replaced by one of those outer-ringers, though that's never done casually. But no matter how hard you try, you can's squeeze another "friend" inside with the five.

[Note: the photo is from about 1962, friends gather in our backyard in Queens. At least one of them, Steve, sitting back-right in the picture, I'm still in frequent contact with. Now that's friendship!]

Bright and Co.

AP writer Ben Evans has taken note of Rep. Bobby Bright (I?-Montgomery) and the other so-called "Blue Dog Democrats" in a piece online this morning. He refers to Bright's opposition to some traditional Democratic Party issues as "a trade-off".

Sweet (heart) Home Alabama

OK, I'm admittedly a bit slow on this item, but the newly designed state tags have started showing up on cars and I realized I missed the entire deign approval process (which happened last October!). That's especially annoying since I called the Tourism folks (who handle the job for some reason) last Summer to check on the process. The reason for my interest? I wanted to find out how Republican cowboy-boot wearing Governor Bob Riley would handle the "Heart of Dixie" design quandary. A 1951 law requires that Alabama car tags "shall also have imprinted thereon a conventionalized representation of a heart and the words "Heart of Dixie." As early as 1999 there was an effort by Representative Alvin Holmes (D-Montgomery) to revoke that requirement. "Dixie means the Confederacy, and the Confederacy represents slavery and racism towards black people," Holmes said. "The Confederacy fought hard to keep our forefathers in slavery." The bill failed.

Democrat Don Siegelman was criticised when the design developed by his administration replaced the words HOD from on top with "Stars Fell on" and made the "Heart of Dixie" logo so tiny you couldn't see it without a close-up inspection. A mini-industry started selling decals to cover up the "Stars Fell" with the words "Heart of Dixie". The Riley Administration has gone even further. The "Heart of Dixie" logo is so faint it's even less visible than the tiny red Siegelman version. [Hint: look in the top right corner]...and the words "Stars Fell" have been replaced by "Sweet Home". Yet somehow the Siegelman critics have been silent about Riley's minimalism.

[Related but only slightly so: a story this morning from Auburn about a councilman removing confederate flags from graves...we do take our symbols seriously, don't we?]

[Also related, a little more so: Gail Collins column in the NY Times about state mottos.]

Let's give The NewsHour $2-Billion!

That's the suggestion of the head of a prestigious journalism think tank. He says providing that kind of an endowment from private sources would allow PBS to produce truly excellent television journalism, and that, he says, would raise the bar for the rest of TV. I doubt it. There are already examples of excellent journalism on TV (can you say 60 Minutes?), and commercial newsrooms are still glued to police scanners and Brittney Spears (or whoever the tart du jour is). Still, you gotta know there are some palpitating hearts at PBS imagining the possibilities.

"Literally Watch?"

I'm not sure if this YouTube entry qualifies as an entry for "Literally Watch" or not, but it's too cool not to post. (- Hold on tight as you experience what was described as the gyrations of the Stock Market experienced literally like a roller coaster.

Harsh Indeed.

I love the newest "politically correct" language to come out of Washington, even as I hate the term political correctness. I saw it today in the N.Y. Times in a story reporting the decision by the U.S. Senate Democratic Majority to follow President Obama's marching orders and not investigate the use of torture...oops...I mean "harsh interrogation techniques"...by the Bush Administration. And I though PC was reserved for the left to use and for the right to ridicule. Harsh indeed. Like waterbording a suspect three times a day for a month, not stopping even when it should have been clear that ---if nothing else--- it wasn't working? The Times' Krugman makes it clear he's in favor of investigations into all that harshness in a column titled "Reclaiming America's Soul." I don't know if I favor that or not, but I do think its time to reclaim the clarity of language we need to move forward. Or I am being too harsh?

[UPDATE: Read Frank Rich's column of Sunday 4/26 in which he writes: President Obama can talk all he wants about not looking back, but this grotesque past is bigger than even he is. It won’t vanish into a memory hole any more than Andersonville, World War II internment camps or My Lai.]

[UPDATE 2: Apparently the language {"Harsh"} in the Times was the subject of extended conversation by editors. Here's the story.]

The Tanker Tangle

"A capable and qualified nominee." That's how Senator Jeff Sessions describes Ashton Carter, the man nominated by President Obama to be the top weapons buyer for the Pentagon. Sessions and Alabama's other U.S. Senator, Richard Shelby, had been blocking Carter because---let's put the cards on the table-- they want to make sure EADS/Northrup-Grumman gets the Air Force tanker contract and assembles the planes at a $600-Million plant in Mobile. The Press-Register reports this morning that the Senators dropped their "block" of Carter after meeting with Secretary of Defense Gates. Both Senators insist they only want a fair process, and now that they've been assured the selection will be handled fairly, they can let the nomination go forward. Shelby says he wants the best plane for the Air Force, even if it costs more. So much for competitive bidding.

Curing Cancer

A N.Y. Times article this morning discusses the relatively small gains toward curing cancer since 1950, despite the enormous resources in time and money that have been dedicated to the "war" in all that time. It's not a very encouraging article. How many times have you seen a TV story about a "possible cure" or an "exciting new therapy". Must be awful for cancer patients to have carrots dangled in front of them so often, with so few actual results.

Gone, Baby, Gone

The Montgomery Mall, not too long ago a major retail center in the Capitol City, is now empty except for a single tenant...the restaurant operated by students at Trenholm Tech culinary school. Now a big retailer is leaving another nearby shopping center...Barnes and Noble will close its only Montgomery location in the Town Center on the Eastern Boulevard at the end of June. The Towne Center is a new looking, well-kept strip of stores, well-lit with a well-paved parking area. Yet it has already lost a movie theatre, A Circuit City, a Just For Feet and some smaller retailers. It may look new, but with Barnes and Noble gone, it will also look like the Montgomery Mall: empty. There's a lot of traffic on the roads at the major intersection of Highway 231 and the Eastern Bypass. I understand why stores close: not enough profit. But it's a mystery to me why shoppers didn't patronize the stores there. It's as if The Montgomery Mall were ground zero, and concentric circles reach out from it, killing any retail establishment within its reach.

Choo-Choo

I've posted about high-speed rail before, but in Alabama there's even a lack of regular-speed rail, at least for passengers. The only Amtrak service comes through the state with stops in Anniston, Birmingham and Tuscaloosa. But according to The Birmingham News this morning, the passenger rail company could announce a plan today to restore the Sunset Limited service from Mobile to Orlando. You have to crawl before you can walk. The Obama Administration's stimulus plan includes money for high speed trains, but "just" $13-Billion over five years. Some folks advocate using all of that money in one place to truly get some high-speed service going, other would spread it out, which might benefit the Gulf Coast route. Just under 48,000 riders got on or off at Alabama's three stations in 2008.

Pre-K vs K-12

Here's an irony. Alabama's Pre-K program has been given a top award as "best in the nation for overall quality", the same day there was an attempt * to divert some added funding from Pre-K to K-12. The proposal came from Senator Scott Beason (R-Gardendale), who wanted to use the money instead for teachers to have $400 a year for use in their classroom. The Beason proposal was tabled on a 26-3 vote. Used to be the big fight was between Higher Ed and K-12. Now there's another entity in the fight for funds. [*NOTE: This link is to a blog I have not seen before, and I was reluctant to link to it because it doesn't offer any indication about who is behind it. There is no email or other contact information. Their information matched what I saw on a blog from WSFA-TV, so I decided go ahead and link to it, but if you are "Alabama 2009 Legislative Bloggers", how about some disclosure?]

The U.S. Attorneys (Again)

Remember a year ago, in February of 2008, when a group of 52 former state Attorneys General signed a letter calling on an investigation into the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Done Siegelman (himself a former AG). Well this morning that number grown to 75 former AG's, including ten Republicans, sending a similar letter to U.S. Attorney General Holder. I've seen the online snide comments about how it "must be a slow news day", but no matter what you think of Siegelman or his prosecution and conviction, it's pretty impressive to have 75 agree his case deserves a look.

Text Driving

Alabama Senate is blocking approval of Jim McClendon's bill to ban teens from texting while driving...when I interviewed him for the "License To Drive" documentary, I asked what justification his peers gave for opposing another of his bills...one to ban cell-phone use while driving. He said some of them think the state has no business dictating what people do in their personal cars. Honest. They must be the same Senators who want you to be able to text behind the wheel. I've gotten really good at spotting cell-phone drivers from a distance. They're the ones driving in several lanes s-l-o-w-l-y. As for the texting drivers, I can spot them even more easily: they're the ones crashing into a tree.

Are you googling me?

Did you arrive at this blog by doing a google search? The search engine that ate the world is now making it "easier" for folks to control what those searches show about them. For a lot of reasons this is truly significant. But there is a downside too. Check the Google instructions to manage you image.

PBS Video Online

The Times reports on a new video portal for PBS this morning, a website that combines all of the Nova, Antique Roadshow, NewsHour and other program pages that were spread all across the net. Yet when I searched the offerings for the single word "Alabama", all that showed were two episodes of "Antique Roadshow" that were taped in the state. Seems like somewhere along the line Alabama would have been the subject of more PBS programs, no? Of course you can watch many previous "For The Record" programs online too.

Legislative Misdirection

It's not like the Alabama Legislature has anything important to do these days. Why shouldn't they wade into the controversy over what the California entrant into the Miss USA pageant said about gay marriage? Rep. Jay Love (R-Pratville) introduced a resolution praising the beauty queen for saying -- in answer to a question -- that she thinks marriage should be only between a man and a women. [Actually you need to listen to the answer yourself. I'm still not sure what she was saying!] That prompted a spirited defense by Rep. Alvin Holmes (D-Montgomery). And yes, that was Miss California speaking, not Miss Alabama, and no, Alabama is not exactly ground-zero for the marriage debate (unlike Iowa and Vermont and New York and, uh, California), but perhaps it really is a critical issue demanding immediate attention from our lawmakers in Montgomery. Remember what U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-6th District) said two years ago this month, according to a story in the Birmingham News:"We could lose Iraq and survive; we lost Vietnam and survived, but if we lose this battle over gay marriage, we are doomed." So there. No wonder legislators are knee-deep in the comments of a beauty contestant. It's not like the Alabama's 9% unemployment rate is a 22 year high, or our Education Budget is facing more proration next year, or the state's rate of high-school dropouts and sexually transmitted diseases and teen traffic deaths are so much higher than the U.S. average or anything. We have our priorities.

Graduation Rates - TGFI

The High School Graduation rate for the city of Indianapolis increased 5.3 per cent over a decade. Now 30.5 per cent of their students get to wear the cap and gown. That stunningly low figure is part of a study of the fifty largest cities in the country [None in Alabama] and their gains or losses between 1995 and 2005 when it comes to keeping the kids in school long enough for them to graduate. The best rate was in Mesa, Arizona: up 12% to 76.60. Although no Alabama cities are in the report, the graduation rate here has been dismal, ranking in the 40's in state-by-state comparisons. Last year that fact was cited in a study as a major drag on economic development in the state.

(-:

A solution to empty shopping malls.

With Century Plaza in Birmingham and Montgomery Mall empty or emptying, a story this morning from USA today game be an idea on saving those retail centers. The story tells of two FBI employees using surveillance cameras at a shopping mall to spy on teen girls trying on prom dresses. Here's a line from the local newspaper: The criminal complaint stated that the two men were on duty in the FBI’s satellite control room, which coincidentally is located at Middletown Mall. The two allegedly stopped a security camera over a makeshift dressing room that had been set up to allow the girls to try on dresses during the event. The FBI satellite control room is in a mall in West Virginia? Bingo! (No, wait, that's another idea for the malls.) Maybe we can lease Montgomery Mall and Century Plaza to the FBI! Naturally the real story here in the presence of the FBI at the mall in the first place. We'll be watching for details.

Presidential Letter

A Chicago man wrote to President Obama with a plaintive request: quit smoking! And The President wrote back! The Chicago Sun-Times has the story. Believe me, I appreciate how difficult it is, and I didn't have two little girls and the nuclear codes a few feet away when I quit a half-dozen years back. Good luck, Mr. President.

Police Tactics

The use of roadblocks by police is being questioned by some Montgomery residents, and so officials will go before the city council tonight to explain just when and where they've been using them. Residents of West Montgomery, a less affluent section of town, suggest police use the roadblocks in their part of town more often than in the East-side, home to many affluent subdivisions and the areas most exclusive shopping area. The police have already released some of the information, showing fewer roadblocks in the West, but I'm not a big fan...there's something heavy-handed about it that bugs me. Sure, the courts have ruled the roadblocks can be used, but I'm not sure they should be used. With that philosophy, why not just randomly select houses for searches too? Again, I know the legal arguments and the difference between a car driving on a "public" road and a home, but still...

Will That Be Aisle or Alley?

Is your pet too pampered to travel in a cage? Book him or her on the first airline for pets. No, not between Alabama and anywhere, at least not yet. PetAirways is limited to some major U.S. destinations. Not one is in The South. That doesn't surprise me, really. We love our pets here as much as they do in the rest of the country, but pleeezzze! We've spent years conditioning our four-footed friends that they're the ones going on vacation when we cart them off to the spa (vet) for a long weekend. (Frankly, I'm not sure this whole thing isn't a hoax, but any excuse to talk about pets is fine by me.)

[UPDATE: I'm not the only one to smell a rat. Check out this blogger's great work on tracking the story.]

Spy Call

President Obama visited the CIA Headquarters in Langley Virginia yesterday, and I watched one brief TV story in which the President was show "working the crowd" inside one of the super secret agency's building. At either side was one of those ever present Secret Service agents, watching for any suspicious moves. Uh, excuse me? Inside CIA Headquarters? I certainly can understand an overall security presence everywhere the president goes, but isn't the spy agency's headquarters like one of the most secure places in the world? And if not, why not?

Little Hearing Set

The court hearing on the DUI charges against Senator Zeb Little (D-Cullman) is now set. It will take place in Jefferson County, where the alleged offense took place. The Senator's alleged refusal to take a Breathalyzer test caused one friend of mine to squawk: "Anybody else who..." You know the routine. I did some searching and found several sites maintianed by defense atttorneys on the subject of refusing to take the test. It's not quite as cut and dried as you might think.

A story vs a news release

Someone please tell me that this "story" from AP on al.com is actually a mislabeled News Release. Please? And if so, how does that happen?

Equine Mystery

What a horrible story out of Florida this morning....as least 22 horses from Argentina at a polo exhibition have died...and others are so sick they too may die of some mystery ailment. The story is in many papers, but here's the Palm Beach Post story. What other large land animals are so loved by humans? I photographed the pair on the left in a field in Tallassee eight or nine years ago, certainly not thoroughbreds but affectionate creatures all.

[UPDATE: the Post quotes sources as saying performance enhancing steroids could be to blame! "According to several sources, the horses had a reaction to a steroid derivative that may have been tainted with a cleaning solution, the Sun Sentinel reported. The shots apparently were administered by an Argentine vet not licensed in the U.S., it further reported."]

[UPDATE: Poison suspected.]

"Oh, I can always teach..."

Alabama's jobless rate has doubled to 9% in the last year, with more jobs going the down the drain every day. There may be a temptation on the part of some professionals to believe teaching can be their fallback career. I'm sure many members of the Alabama Education Association will read the collected brief essays in today's New York Times with a nodding head...uh huh! Teaching is not for the faint at heart. And no matter how much you know about your subject, actually teaching it is a whole different matter. Twice in years past I taught broadcast writing at Jefferson State Community College near Birmingham, and both times I struggled to juggle all of the balls teachers are supposed to handle with ease, and those were college age students, not adolescents!

MMMM* # 37 - Purposeful Clicks

I like to think of myself as a journalist first, and a consumer of news second. Yet when I went online to the Chicago Sun-Times on Saturday I found myself clicking on the link to a video of a lemur at a zoo saved by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation from a visitor. There. I feel better having at least confessed. What I did next though may be even more telling. I quickly and purposefully clicked on several more items with journalistic purity items offered on the paper's website. I didn't actually read the stories...but I did click on them, announcing my journalistic good intentions to the servers that host the newspaper's web content. "There!", I was in effect saying, "I consumed your main product...keep making it!" As if my pitiful clicks could somehow help save newspapering. TiVo is another area where the aggregated information about what shows you TiVo tells producers a lot about viewership. Want to support a show even if you don't watch it? Put in a Season Pass. Then delete the shows as they show up on your Now Playing list. Meanwhile, back online...it is true, clicks do mean something. Each one is a vote of sorts, tallied at some level of the site's programming. I subscribe to Google Analytics, and it provides me with a wealth of information about the thousands of people who come by for a visit. I know what countries, states and cities they are from, how long they stay, what kind of browser they use and what language they speak. This graphic shows the distribution of Alabama visitors (they don't make it easy to copy the graphic from the site, so it appears squashed and in B&W only, but you get the idea). Another example: I know there have been thirteen visitors from nine places in Tennessee in recent days. I have a long-time friend who lives in West Virginia who lost his Internet connection. I'll probably know through Analytics the moment he has service restored and visits this blog since there are only a few visitors from that state, and he's the only one I know from that particular town. Most visitors stay only a short time, though one remained for almost half-an hour. I presume he or she fell asleep. (-:

So anyway, use your clicks judiciously. They say a lot about your likes or dislikes.

[Addendum: NY Times Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal in an interview on Sunday: "Frankly, I think it is the task of bloggers to catch up to us, not the other way around." And I'm not sure I don't agree with him! And there's also a David Carr column about the cable-TV wars and a loss of objectivity.]

[*The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this blog]

A(nother) Great American Tragedy

I've been working my other cyberhomes (Facebook and Twitter) this weekend trying to remember the name of an old movie that rings so true these days. I recalled it as being B&W and from the 50's or 60's. After a lot of hard work by Facebook friends (Thanks Skip!), the answer is : A Great American Tragedy...George Kennedy,Vera Miles and William Windom star in the story of a man who loses his job and tries to maintain his dignity. Perhaps the real G.A.T. is that I remembered it as being so much earlier a movie and that I remembered it as B&W, thouse it came out in 1972 in color. Maybe I saw it on a B&W set? (Yes children, some TV's had no color back then!) Obviously the "recession" is the motivation for me to think about the flick. April 30th will mark my 40th year in broadcasting, and I'm working hard to spend it employed (-: Maybe it's time for a remake? I remember it as very moving, especially for made-for-TV fare, and I'm trying to find a VHS or DVD of it.

Lt. Gov. Hank Erwin?

Senator Hank and I actually did a pro/con segment on Channel 42 in Birmingham around 1994...he'd wear his American Flag tie and I'd wear, well, I'd be dressed down let's say, and we'd go at it for a few minutes on an issue three days a week. It was the first TV exposure I'd had since doing newscasts in Vietnam a quarter century earlier, and I loved it. That led to my full-time gig at what was then called WBMG (WIAT now) as a kinda weather guy. No, I am not a meteorologist, but I did play one on TV. The "Southern Exposure" segment was a combination brief weather forecast and a feature story. We had an actual meteorologist on call for severe weather. Anyway, I was thinking about all that today because Senator Erwin is running for Lt. Governor after 2 Senate terms...and because there's severe weather about, so the CBS station here in Montgomery interrupted 60-Minutes twice for about 10 minutes each time. Hey, I get severe weather...but what happened to one of the three digital channel that they have thanks to a gift from the taxpayers? It's devoted to weather 24-hours a day...wouldn't a crawl telling who's in the path be enough on the regular channel?

For Truly Dumb Consumers

Spotted this item for sale in the grocery store this weekend...and loved the promise on the box that it is "easy to assemble and use." There are like what, two parts? And none of them are moving. How do you use it? Duh! Hang the fruit on the hook!

Splittin'

I've been negligent by failing to post about Texas Governor Rick Perry and his off-hand comment about his state seceding from The Union. Gail Collins has a wonderful column on the subject today, and I recommend you read it. But Gail is up there in New York land and seems to have completely ignored one slight little item. We Alabamans seem to remember a lot more than the Times folks about that whole secession thing...been there, done that. The United States tore itself apart at extraordinary cost in blood an money almost 150 years ago to decide the secession issue (among other matters, like slavery). Governor Perry needs to have his head examined for even mentioning it. The major Civil War battles were fought far from Texas. Perhaps if there had been a "Sherman's March to the Gulf", he'd be a bit more cautious with his demagoguery.

Browder's South

I was pleased to have an opportunity to speak with former Alabama 3rd District Congressman Glen Browder at the Book Festival at Old Alabama Town. The first volume in his new trilogy of books about politics and The South is due out in May, titled "The South's New Racial Politics" from NewSouth Books. Our conversation was off the record, but the topic was the 2010 race for governor, speculating about the candidates various strengths and weaknesses. Also spoke briefly with Martin Olliff, the Director of Wiregrass History and Culture at Troy University Dothan, and chatted with students at Booker T Washington H.S., a magnet school in the Capitol, who were selling copies of their literary magazine Graphophobia* as a fundraiser for their attendance at U.C. Berkley. Bill Rice of The Montgomery Independent was selling prints of his cityscape of Montgomery. Nice turnout for the event, and only about ten drops of rain in advance of the real rain event tomorrow.

[*a fear of writing]

BINGO, Next Chapter

The Alabama Supreme Court issued a stay of Judge Mark Kennedy's order involving the White Hall Entertainment complex, but just what that means is up for debate. WSFA-TV in Montgomery reported it means the Governor's Task Force can raid the place again because the stay means "everything goes back to where it was before Kennedy;s order", but the Birmingham News story linked above indicates it means David Barber can keep the machines and money he seized for the time being, but doesn't mention the possibility of another raid. [UPDATE: An AP story in the Montgomery Advertiser this morning indicates the raid is possible, but quotes a White Hall lawyer:"I don't think it would be (a) smart thing or a fair thing to do."]

Beercasting

Why do I find it somehow appropriate that the current president of the National Broadcaster's Association was the chief lobbyist for the National Beer Wholesaler's Association before he took over the broadcast job in 2005?

David Rehr will be speaking at next month's Alabama Broadcasters Association meeting at Perdido Beach. Oh well, a lobbyist is a lobbyist is a lobbyist. The ABA news release tells us Rehr...

"...has been featured in numerous major U.S. media outlets, including the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Washington Times, New York Times, ABC World News Tonight and C-Span," which reminds me of those infomercials for paint-your-bald spot type products. You can bet the broadcasters at the meeting will be hearing even more than usual about advertising, or the lack thereof. Spending on automobile TV ads, for example, is down 40% in the first quarter.

The Times Does Birmingham

The NY Times travel series "36 Hours In..." features Birmingham today. It's a positive review, as most are, with little criticism except this true observation: "To get around the city, you’ll need a rental car; cabs are scarce beyond the airport, and bus service is threadbare." Vulcan gets proper notice, as does the Civil Rights Institute, the 16th Street Baptist Church, and the Barber Vintage Motorsports Musuem. The featured picture is inside Highlands Bar and Grill, but Little Savannah and Miss Myra’s Pit Bar-B-Q ("...the décor of the former convenience store is mostly a celebration of the past glory of the Crimson Tide.") also get billing. Not a bad review, especially for Yankees who may think of Alabama's largest city as a center for steel and racial hatred.

Bookish Behavior

The Alabama Book Festival is tomorrow at Old Alabama Town in Montgomery, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm. Lots of authors, signings, readings, lectures etc etc. It's pretty much the place to be if you love books. Weather for Saturday? Partly Sunny, Hi 76 °F...perfect. I'll be there with cams in hand to record some of the action and look for potential employers!

EADS: 12 is Enough

The French aircraft manufacturer tells today's Times they are OK with splitting the huge air tanker contract with rival Boeing...so long as the factory they will build in Mobile constructs at least a dozen planes a year. Senators Shelby and Sessions have been blocking a key Pentagon nomination to make it more likely EADS/Grumman will get the contract. One other Congressman wondered in the N.Y. Times earlier this month what all the fuss is: Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, says a no-frills tanker should be easy enough for either company to build. "It's just a flying gasoline tank," he said. "It's not the F-22 or the Battlestar Galactica."

Pay-Per-View Newspapers

There are only two newspaper in Alabama that I know of that charge for full access to their online product: The Anniston Star and The Decatur Daily. Of the big national papers, The Wall Street Journal is the largest example of a pay-to-read online operation. Now Wired is reporting that "a leak has sprung" in the Journal's pay-wall. The N.Y. Times tried for a while to charge for "Select" content, including its premier columnists, but later abandoned the effort. It has been the biggest stumbling block in the transitioning newspaper business. The readers are online, but are refusing, or are at least reluctant, to pay.