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.

Galleria/Century Plaza Owner Files for Chapter 11

The firm that owns the Riverchase Galleria [SEE UPDATE BELOW] and Century Plaza in Birmingham has filed for bankruptcy. General Growth Properties has been struggling with billions of dollars of debt, but says daily operations of the malls it owns across the country will not be affected. According to the company's website, they own: 200 regional shopping malls in 44 states, as well as ownership in master planned community developments and commercial office buildings. The Company’s portfolio totals approximately 200 million square feet of retail space and includes over 24,000 retail stores nationwide.

[UPDATE: Birmingham News says Galleria was not included in properties listed in bankruptcy filing. Not sure at this point about Century Plaza.]

[UPDATE #2: The Riverchase Galleria is owned by GGP but is NOT included in the bankruptcy filing. Century Plaza is also owned by GGP and IS included.]

Foreclosures Spike

Birmingham News this morning reporting a spike in Alabama foreclosures...up 200% according to RealtyTrac.

TIME stumbles in new venture

When TIME magazine announced it was offering free five-issue subscriptions to a new kind of magazine, I signed up. The new mag would include articles about issues, topics, places and people you selected in advance. In other words, a customized magazine printed for YOU! It's called "Mine", and the first issue arrived in my mail this week. So did an e-mail from TIME: Thank you for subscribing to mine magazine. We want to let you know that a computer error may have affected the first issue you received this week. It's possible that this issue did not contain the combination of magazine content you selected. Please know that the problem has been resolved, and that each of your subsequent issues will reflect the exact content you originally requested. In appreciation of your support, we have extended your five-issue subscription to include a sixth free issue of mine. Whoops. But I'll certainly give 'em credit for quickly addressing the problem, unlike the hapless folks at Domino's Pizza who underestimated the damage a fake video by two of it's (now former) kitchen workers would do.

(Not so) Poor-mouth

I can't remember the name, but I saw a black and white movie years ago that told the story of an executive in the aerospace business who loses his job, but who continues to spend like crazy 'cause he doesn't want his friends and neighbors and family to know how tight money is. He hosts a big catered party in his yard at which bravado is as much on the menu as barbecue. A story in this morning's Washington Post tells the opposite story: people who are doing well, but who are cutting back anyway, further feeding the seemingly ravenous recession.

More of the teabag rally

Teabag Rally at Statehouse in Montgomery

The Teabag Protest at The Alabama Statehouse

A brief video of today's protest

Teabagging in Montgomery

Dropped by the gathering on the steps of the Statehouse to share some photos of the protest. Certainly a good turnout...an almost all white crowd of several hundred, maybe 500? Here are some shots to give you a flavor for it.

Is it significant that virtually all of the protesters were white? Is race always a factor in Alabama? President Obama says his tax plan would reduce taxes for all but the wealthiest top ten per cent of the population. Is that who the protesters were? Alabama already has either the lowest or close to the lowest taxes in America. Are these protesters from out of state?

Should they be concerned about the money we're borrowing to get out of the fiscal mess we're in? Sure they should...we all should. But how come there weren't any tea parties during the eight years of the Bush Administration, which was left a budget surplus of $127-Billion from the Clinton Administration, and yet ended eight years later with a budget deficit of over $1-Trillion.

The BINGO Raid

Is it just me, or did the raid on the White Hall Entertainment Center seem just a bit heavy handed? The raid could very well be exhibit "A" in the battle between Attorney General Troy King and Governor Bob Riley over what is and what is not a slot machine. Riley hired former Jefco District Attorney David Barber to head up a task force, and Barber orchestrated the raid to seize almost half-a-Million in cash and a hundred electronic BINGO machines. Barber says the armed raid was necessary because there were armed people in the center. And he asked if you would expect law enforcement to go into a drug den unarmed? But that's the point. White Hall isn't some secret underground gambling den with passwords needed to enter. They advertised their existence and welcomed anyone old enough to come on in. Why didn't the task force simply serve notice, seize the machines and go to court? Barber says the machines could have been changed from slot machines to BINGO machines if they had given notice. OK, how about stationing some undercover witnesses inside, then serve notice, and watch for any evidence of messing with the machines until the "raiding" party arrives with the legal papers?

Montgomery lawyer Jock Smith has filed suit on behalf of some of the employees working at the time of the raid. Barber says the raid was a success because nobody was injured. The Alabama Supreme Court will eventually decide the case.

As aside: a TV report on a BINGO related bill introduced by Pratville Representative Mac Gipson started with this line: A bill has been introduced in the legislature to ensure that raids like the one in White Hall don't happen in Elmore or Autauga County.

Mac Gipson's bill certainly does that, but it does so by banning electronic BINGO games in those counties. I'd say it was an awfully inverted way of explaining what the TV story was about.

Gipson's bill excludes Native Americans, as it must. The state has no right to regulate the electronic BINGO gaming on tribal lands unless a "compact"-- an agreement-- is reached between the state and the tribe. That would include the tribe agreeing to pay taxes on the gambling income, something they don't do now. No Alabama Governor has negotiated such a pack, primarily because it would then allow the tribes to offer full casino gambling.

Bama Girl

The documentary Bama Girl will be shown at the Capri Theater in Montgomery on Tuesday April 21st, and the producer will be present for a Q&A after the showing. It tells the story of an African-American student at The University of Alabama who runs for Homecoming Queen. Jessica Thomas' story is one that will probably have many Alabama viewers shaking their heads in recognition...but there are surprises too. Can she defeat "The Machine" candidate? I've already seen the documentary (it was out on DVD last Fall), and recommend it. If nothing else, it's good for Alabamians to know how the state and its racial heritage are being presented to other Americans.

By the way, Ms. Thomas was a broadcast journalism/political science major at UA. Perhaps after viewing the miserable media job landscape, she is currently seeking her JD degree.

Tea Stunts

An Alabama TV reporter introducing a segment on tomorrow's planned "tea-bag protests" over high taxes breathless told viewers last night "we'll tell you how you can take part!" In the story, one of the usual suspects at anti-tax events predicted that the "MSM" won't be able to ignore hundreds of Americans gathered in hundreds of cities tomorrow. Ignore? The TV "MSM" love stories like this. Bring on the live shots in the Noon newscasts! Hold up the tea bags and join the populist revolution fueled by talk-radio! As for a critical examination of the issues? Ain't happening.

It might be worthwhile to mention that the original Boston Tea Party was fuled by a tax reduction, not an increase...and other bloggers are asking a good question: just where were all the tea baggers during the eight years when G.W. was building up the national debt?

Paul Krugman has some observations [this is the same Paul Krugman who was on the cover of Newsweek last week criticising the Obama Administration to the cheers of the tea-bag crowd] in the Times. He calls the demonstrations "Astro-turf" events. Whatever. The real winner will be companies that sell tea, and I'm sure they too could use an economic boost these days.

[UPDATE: Commentary here regarding FOX News coverage/promotion of event.]

Ga$ and Oil

Not for the first time, I'm left wondering why oil prices keep dropping, perhaps to five year lows, while we all watch the gasoline price at the pump slide upward at the same time. One L.A. Times story provides clues this morning. Oil traders think we Americans have become about as fuel efficient as we can, short of a major overhaul in the cars we drive. Lst week Chevron announced lower than expected earnings in the first quarter. Welcome aboard, fella, welcome aboard.

New Highs in Hitting Bottom

Bankruptcies are way up, even though Congress passed legislation several years ago to make it more difficult for individuals to get out from under crushing dept. The story ranks Delaware #1, with the most, and Alabama at 19th, up 47% in the past year. Only one state had a drop in filings: Louisiana (maybe that's where some of the increased cost of gasoline went in the past 12 months?)

"Literally Watch"

Every now and then the perfect example of the correct use of "literally" shows up, and we like to highlight it along with the more frequent misuses. Here's one from an AP story today: (AP) — SILER CITY, N.C. -- Four years ago, Andrew Meeks literally bet the farm on chickens. Now he fears he made a losing bet. His three massive chicken houses are empty, and a "For Sale" sign has sprouted out front. Meeks, a contract chicken farmer, borrowed nearly half a million dollars to refurbish his 25-acre farm, putting up as collateral his home, the farm itself and virtually everything else he owns. Farmer Meeks did in fact (i.e. literally) "bet the farm". Go AP! (Uh, sorry about the farm, Mr. Meeks.) ["Literally Watch" is a public service of this blog, with the goal of preserving the original, and we believe correct, use of the word. Earlier today I heard the phrase "very unique" in a news broadcast. Should I start a "Unique Watch" too?]

MMMM #36 - And we mean HYPER local

Might a computer assembled set of facts about events within blocks of your home replace the daily or weekly newspaper in your life? (Presuming you want a replacement for that paper!) If you've ever Googled a place...a Zip Code or a town name, you know the dozens of sites that will try to lure you with a collection of online facts about that place. According to a story in this morning's NY Times, some companies are taking a similar approach to gathering "news". The Chicago Sun-Times also has a story today. There are some significant problems with the model, like figuring out how to make it profitable, but perhaps there's a glimmer here. Your thoughts? MMMM #36 Part TWO --Public Broadcasting to the rescue? Just caught up with an article in the publication "Current", aimed at the public broadcasting insider audience. It suggests public radio, and TV too, has an opportunity to increase it's news output to take advantage of the gap caused by cutbacks and bankruptcies at newspapers. Imagine that.

Recession Easter Eggs

On the top, 2008 pre-recession Easter eggs. On the right, this year's crop. The coloring kit last year was a $29 bells and whistles version. This year, $2.99 PAAZ. Welcome to the real world. (-:

Harvard President needed 2nd job?

Frank Rich's column in today's N.Y. Times is worth reading, if only for the information that President Obama's top economic advisor, Lawrence Summers, while he was president of Harvard, was moonlighting in the financial markets.

3 of 4 "pirates" dead, Captain SAFE!

Times/AP report...the U.S. military did it!

Sparks Undecided about Governor?

A large photo illustration on the front page of the Montgomery Advertiser this morning has the photos of folks who are possible or already announced or not-running candidates for Governor next year. Around each photo is a color frame, with green representing an announced candidate, red representing those who've said they will not run, and blue indicating a candidate is undecided. Yet Democratic Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks gets the blue treatment, despite the fact that he announced his intention to run in a series of news conferences this last week. And Republican Luther Strange, who is considering a run for something, is framed in green, indicating he's decided to run for Governor. Whoops. A text list of who's-who on an inside page gets all of the running-not-running right. Maybe the Advertiser is just trying to show politics is colorblind? Or is it a case of the impact of media layoffs showing up on page one?

[NOTE: My post corrected on Monday. The Advertiser did include Roy Moore as "undecided", despite my original comment that he had been left out.]

Bobby Bright, I-Montgomery

"I"? Gee, I could have sworn the former Mayor ran under the banner of the Democratic Party and took a chunk of cash from the state and national Democratic party coffers. But this morning's Montgomery Advertiser paints Bright as so anti-party he's an "I", as in Independent:

"I am an independent, focused toward what's right for our country. ... My constituents are a close second. Party labels have a place, but it's down the line."

Does Representative Bright really think he could have won the election running as an "I" instead of with the support of a major party, "D" or "R"?

Note the previous post on this blog quoting the Clerk of The House as saying there are no Independents in the House right now. Guess we'll have to send him a copy of this story!

And the Washington Times had a story last month identifying Bright and Alabama's only other Democratic Congressman, Parker Griffith, as two of the very few real Blue Dog Democrats.

(I like to credit local reporters when I link to a story, but The Advertiser piece online has no byline that I could find.)

[UPDATE: My dead-tree and ink edition credits Deborah Barfield Berry as reporter on the Bright piece this morning]

About those pirates...

My military experience is limited..three years in the U.S. Army, but somebody please tell me that the U.S. Government, backed by the most powerful military in the world, has told the "pirates" off Somalia that if they so much as damage a single hair on the Captain's head, they will be utterly destroyed and their families hunted down too? OK, the family part is a touch drastic, and I do understand how lawless that part of Africa is, but is there nothing we can do? Can't the ships be armed somehow? In Vietnam it was the NVA black-pajama jungle fighters. In Iraq and Afghanistan it's the the "insurgents". All smaller forces going up against the mighty USA. At least those Vietnam and Middle-East fighters were battling for something they believed in. These "pirates" are nothing other than common criminals. There must be something the rest of the world can do to stop their plundering. [UPDATE: Late this afternoon came word that the FBI is opening a criminal probe into the pirates. So there.] [UPDATE 2: Op-Ed piece in the Times on the difficulty of battling the pirates.

Bank Whining

So you have a family emergency and go borrow some money from a bank. But when the emergency is past and you are able to repay, you complain about the agreed upon terms for repayment. Think the bank will simply say "Oh, fine, just ignore the paper you signed..?" Now read this story in today's N.Y. Times. The tables have turned, and some of the banks that took bailout money are complaining about the agreement they signed. And in a related note, now that Wells Fargo has posted a net profit of $3-Billion for their first 2009 quarter, is it time they start paying back some of the $25-Billion they took in taxpayer bailout money? And by the way, did you know that Southern banks got more money than those in any other region? And Alabama was on top of the list...even though Senators Sessions and Shelby were screaming the loudest about the "bailout"? The Wall Street Journal has an interactive map you can use to go state by state.

Paul Krugman argues that the partial solution to this banking abyss is to "make banking boring again." I think most of us would be glad to return to a time when a toaster was about the most exciting thing that might happen in your relationship with a bank.

Obama: The most polarizing president.

Who has been the most polarizing new U.S. President of recent times? In today's Washington Post, Michael Gerson writes it is Barack Obama. And he has stats to back him up. Of course Mssr. Gerson was a Bush speechwriter...

No Indictment

The Corrections employee was driving a state van, talking on a cell phone, ran a red light, and the resulting three-vehicle left an inmate in the van dead. According to a story in the Dothan Eagle, prosecutors presented the case to a grand jury, and the jurors decided there was no crime was committed. I'm not a lawyer, but huh? If it had been a little girl or boy in the van who had been killed, would the grand jury have reached the same decision? There must be more to this story than is being presented, no?

Riley on BINGO Legislation

Gov. Riley tells The Press Register he's bothered by the monopoly aspect of the legislation, that only a few people would become millionaires because of the bill to restrict BINGO gambling to a half dozen sites.

Holder: Siegelman Case

Birmingham News reports the Siegelman case is NOT under review. Quotes AG Holder.

17 Socialists

The Birmingham News quotes an Alabama congressman as saying there are 17 socialists in the House. 17! Now, I know there's a U.S. Senator who calls himself a Socialist..Vermont's Bernie Sanders...but he caucuses with the Democrats. Officially he's an Independent, as is Senator Joe Lieberman. The clerk of the house says there are no independents in the U.S. House with Congressman Bachus, a Republican from Vestavia. Senator Sanders used to be in the House, so that's means there used to be one...unfortunately our Alabama Representative didn't name the 17. And just how do you define a "socialist?" anyway. And while we're at it, how about a definition for Democrat and Republican? George Wallace used to say "there's not a dime's worth of difference between the two" referring to Democrats and Republicans. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have said the same about a socialist.

[UPDATE: New York Times column on just what "socialism" means!]

New Cemetery

A dedication ceremony is scheduled for this morning for the Alabama National Cemetery, a veteran's administration facility in Shelby County. The Birmingham News reports there will be representatives of 11 "denominations" involved in consecrating the new burial ground at 11:00am. Presumably that will not include the Reverend Fred Phelps, who's Kansas church has organized protests at veteran's funerals. The facility regulations may have been written with that in mind:

Public gatherings of a partisan nature are prohibited, no unauthorized gatherings are permitted. Committal shelters are for services only, no loitering.

I do wonder how they'll define "partisan" if push ever comes to shove. And how wide will the religious net be? The dictionary definition of "denomination" is: A large group of religious congregations united under a common faith and name and organized under a single administrative and legal hierarchy.

Will there be an Imam present? Or is the word denomination being used too loosely in the News?

Anyway, bless the departed veterans who'll be laid to rest in Montevallo.

[UPDATE: The Shelby County News reports: "Faiths represented included Buddhism, Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Presbyterian, Jewish, Episcopal, Baptist, Southern Baptist, Assembly of God and Protestant."

My Designing Family

My nephew Art's wife Ayaco has started selling shirts and bags and things with her original designs online. Her website is here: http://www.koko.net.au/

Yes, they live in Australia (he teaches at a University there), and that adds a bit on to the shipping cost, but these are unique shirts, shopping bags [the eco-friendly comparison to the plastic bags that some countries have actually banned] and tapestries too! Stop by and enjoy!.

I like the cat, though there's a polar bear juggling design that's cool too. Check it out!

Nashville, meet Jefco.

The same derivatives and interest rate swaps that have sent Jefferson County to the brink of bankruptcy are threatening the financial stability of Nashville...at least now the Jefferson County Commissioners who approved the deal can have the cold comfort of knowing they are not alone.

Privateers - NOT!

The news is filled with talk of pirates today because a ship (coincidentally named "The Maersk Alabama"...the Maersk Company names their ships after U.S. States. They also own a Maersk Alaska etc...) was taken over by pirates off Somalia. One story gives the history of the U.S. and pirates, and concludes with a line about there being Confederate "privateers" during the U.S. Civil War. Uh, I think not. Raphael Semmes and his peers who fought the North via commerce raiding sailed on military ships representing the Confederate States of America. The CSA did authorize "letters of marque" for privateers to operate, but there's no evidence any actually did. Sorry to get my adopted confederate hackles up, but as you may know, I spent a lot of time researching Semmes and his CSS Alabama for a documentary that was, alas, shelved when my job, and Bob Corley's (that's us in the picture), were eliminated at APT.

Iowa Maj. Leader blocks amendment to reverse Iowa marriage equality

A Wednesday qustion: N.H., California (on hold), Vermont, and now Iowa...is the Iowa Majority Leader's daughter correct in the video when she says "you've lost"? And will Alabama be the last state to allow gay marriage?

BINGO Ads Pulled

Several TV stations in Alabama owned by Montgomery-based Raycom Media have pulled an ad in favor of a bill that would legalize and regulate BINGO. The ad was sponsored by the group called the "Sweet Home Alabama Coalition", and it repeats allegations raised during both of Bob Riley's campaigns for governor that he had received election donations from Mississippi Native American Tribes. Riley denies the allegations. But there's no question that gambling interests in Mississippi would like to quash any additional Alabama gambling.

The ad is part of an increasingly harsh campaign for and against the BINGO legislation. Take a look:

Sweet Home Alabama: Riley took Gambling Money commercial.

Anti BINGO commercial: Do you want Alabama to be like Nevada?

And Governor Riley has his own YouTube statement about BINGO.

Neither side in the fight is willing to say who's funding who...reports Dana Beyerle the Florence Times-Daily.

The Montgomery Advertiser offers the story too, including a quote from Riley's spokesman calling the other side "not only liars but also cowards". Now those are fighting words! Imagine: The Governor of Alabama calling Alabama lead singer Randy Owen a liar and a coward!

Interestingly, TV stations are not allowed to edit or refuse commercials from candidates during election campaigns. That's to preserve the right of freedom of political speech. But that same regulation doesn't extend to issue ads. The Raycom stations rejected the ad despite a real shortage of advertising dollars. I don't know if any other Alabama stations are running it.

[UPDATE: The CBS station in Montgomery, WAKA, is still running the ad as of this evening.

Cell Phone Regulation

Alabama Legislators are considering a bill making it illegal for teens to use their cell phones while they drive. But suppose for a moment that's backward thinking, that---as a story in today's Times asks: “... is using a cellphone the distraction, or has driving become the distraction?” Huh??? Read about a proposed new smart car...or smart cart. Oh yea...it's a proposed product from none other than GM!

The Antique Tanker War

New bids for the U.S. Air Force fleet of refueling tankers will go out this summer...so says Press-Register Washington correspondant Sean Reilly this afternoon...

Alabama's two U.S. Senators are using their minority clout in an attempt to influence the decision about replacing those tankers. The Alabama Senators are blocking the confirmation of the man President Obama has selected as the Pentagon's top weapons buyer, Ashton Carter. They're trying to get him to say whether he thinks the award should be based on price, or the capabilities of the planes. If the latter is in the mix, it helps Northrup-Grummen/EADS, the group that would assemble the planes in Mobile.

Interestingly, the argument for getting the selection process moving again is that the tankers are so much older than their expected lifespan. 25% of them aren't flying at all. Why is it that we all cheer when NASA keeps vehicles exploring Mars long after they were expected to stop working, but if earthly vehicles last longer than expected we complain? Maybe it's the fact that replacing the tanker fleet is a $35-Billion contract?

MMMM #35 - Obsessive Coverage

A story about a seminar on media coverage of President Obama last week got me thinking. The seminar sponosors asked the panlists if the media pays too much attention to Obama. I don't much care about that question, but I do find myself amazed by the odd stories that will somehow resonate with TV News producers and show up endlessly on local newscasts. There's that American student charged with murder in..where?..somewhere in Europe I'm pretty sure. Look, I'm sorry someone is dead. And I'm sorry someone else may end up being punished. But why in the world would a local TV newscast include that story unless the student is in fact a local resident? What possible connection can viewers have to it? Who was the man in California charged with murdering his missing wife...Anderson? No Peterson! Another example of a "who cares" story that producers seem fascinated with. Some of this is the result of the stranglehold consultants have put on newscasts. Every single one must include a "Developing Story" and a "Breaking Story" and a "News from Outside_____" item...outside wherever the station happens to be. So the producer had to find a story to fill the "outside" slot. The story has to have some video (of course). So if a murder case in whi-knows-where is being covered by the station's network...voila! [MEDDENDUM: 1) Please read this column about the death of newspapers, and why you should care. 2) The Newspaper Association of America has collected the thoughts of ten insiders about the future of newspapers. 3) AND read this lecture, which examines the shrinking newsroom and asks this question: Will news organizations...be able to adequately cover their communities when the financial pressures are so severe and so unrelenting?] [The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this blog]

Newsrooms Past

I only briefly worked for a newspaper, a tiny weekly in Virginia after my U.S. Army service. But the radio newsrooms I worked in during the 70's had a feel similar to the print newsrooms described in a Friday piece by Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times titled "The best damn job in the whole damn world." The newsrooms I worked in were noisy, smokey places filled with foul language and shouting. They were terribly exciting to be in when news broke, and sometimes even when it didn't. I just read what I've written, and perhaps some explanation is needed for younger readers:

• radio stations used to have actual news departments. At one point in Birmingham there were ten people working in one station's newsroom, actually gathering news and breaking stories...though even then the newspapers broke most of it. I remember getting my Birmingham News one late afternoon* and seeing the story of a wealthy woman murdered in one of the mansions on Red Mountain**. She had been found dead in her bed by her maid, and the family's black-sheep son was the suspect. It was a really big story and I had missed it. I was kicking myself all week. We actually did compete with the papers back then. Really.

• They were smokey because smoking was allowed. Hell, it was almost encouraged. You smoked even if you didn't. If anybody had a bottle of liquor in their bottom desk drawer I never saw it. But it wouldn't have shocked me. And don't ask me about the DJ's down the hall.
• The newsrooms were noisy because everyone typed on electric, or in some cases (RIP Jesse Champion) manual typewriters. The Associated Press wire machine typed out its stories almost endlessly, as did another machine from the National Weather Service. There was a police scanner blaring the 20 or so channels in use in the Birmingham area. And when you needed a background fact for a story, you generally shouted across the room to see if anyone had the answer. There was a TV on too, mercifully with the sound turned down till a newscast came on. Everyone was talking on the phone and, of course, we also had the radio on!

[The photos: that's News Director Bob Rowe (l) and I (r) in the top photo, and Jesse Champion, Sr. smoking the pipe in the lower one, all in the WERC Newsroom, late 1970's]

* The Birmingham News used to be the afternoon newspaper. Then they renegotiated their joint-operating agreement with the Birmingham Post-Herald in 1996 and moved to mornings. That allowed the News to survive, at least till now, and allowed the Post-Herald to die, later, in 2005.

One of the Post-Herald's greatest reporters was Capitol Correspondent/columnist Ted Bryant, who died a decade ago this June 30th. Ted was an occasional guest on For The Record. If you read the Ebert piece linked at the top of this posting, you can easily imagine Ted fitting right in to the Sun-Times newsroom culture, though he would have done it with a distinctly Southern accent.

** Was that the Virginia Simpson murder? I've searched under every place I can imagine and can't find details it anywhere...especially in my brain!

2010 Governor's Race

Interesting quote and insight from Birmingham-Southern Political Science Professor Natalie Davis this morning in a Charles Dean story in The Birmingham News: "I think with Folsom's decision to stay out, Artur Davis clearly has a foothold in the Democratic race," said Natalie Davis, who is not related to the candidate. "I think that makes some elements of the Democratic Party nervous, nervous that a black candidate at the top of the ticket could lead to the party losing control of the Legislature, and that's why you're suddenly seeing somebody like Roger Bedford being mentioned, somebody who the old interest groups in the party can identify with as opposed to Davis." There are some folks who say Davis can't win, and they justify that belief by pointing to the fact that Barack Obama won only 10% of the Alabama white vote in the General Election. Then again, Obama did win the Alabama Primary, and there were folks who said America wasn't ready for a black president either. [Note: The Montgomery Advertiser's Sebastian Kitchen offers similar analysis in this morning's paper...I read it in the print edition and wanted to link to it online but if it is on their site, I can't find it...and I looked!]

Unemployment

OK, sure, I DO have a dog in this particular fight. So there.

There are three issues here. First: the story that hundreds of thousands of Americans on unemployment are not far from having those benefits run out. Second: The Governors (including our own) who are refusing some of the Federal Stimulus money because it will require states to fund the expansion down the road. and third: Part of the stimulus package includes cash to pay a chunk of the premium on COBRA health insurance, but only for those folks who lost their jobs between September and the end of 2008. [WRONG! See my correction in comments]As for the two million or more who've become unemployed since then? Sorry bout that, I guess. I haven't heard any movement to help (us) them. COBRA allows the unemployed to continue their health insurance, but at great cost...about a thousand dollars a month for family coverage. That's about the same as the maximum unemployment benefit in Alabama. The stimulus package will pay 65% of those premiums...but again, only for those fortunate enough to have been let go before December 31st. There. I feel better. Thanks for letting me vent.

A New Statehouse

You may have heard by now that the proposal to replace the existing Statehouse in Montgomery is gaining traction.*..and it appears to have support from both Democratic and Republican legislators. The latest wrinkle is to go to the money man himself...David Bronner...and get him to fund it with the sale of bonds. The state would rent the building from RSA till the bonds were paid off. The location of the new facility? Right next door to the current Statehouse building, the site of an existing parking lot immediately East of the Capitol Building. Is there a need for a new building? Sure. The current one is crowded and has mold problems. But guess what? In case the legislators hadn't noticed, there's an almost-depression underway. Families are putting off buying all kinds of things they need. There's also a Gubernatorial election starting up, with candidates making their announcements. I wonder which one of them will stand up and say building a new place for the legislators to meet is a good use of declining tax dollars? Artur? Tim? Roger? Ron? Bradley? Who's first? [* This story refers to adding a new "legislative wing" to the Capitol, but my understanding is that the new structure would be on the other side of Union Street, and not connected to the Historic Capitol Building in any physical way.] [UPDATE; Monday 4/6/09 The latest AP story refers to the legislation providing for the closing of streets presumably Union Street, which runs along the rear of the existing building , so perhaps there is a physical connection to the Capitol Building being considered.]

Bronner to the Rescue

State Treasurer Kay Ivy's beleaguered PACT program may be rescued by RSA's David Bronner. So says Dave White in a Birmingham news story this morning. But the current do-nothing board overseeing PACT would be eliminated, and Bronner would run things. Considering how well the RSA holdings have done despite the collapse of so many retirement "plans" (how is your 401k?), I'd say Bronner may be just the white knight PACT needs.

The REALLY big issue...

...is cloudy iced tea. To make a long story longer...I drink a lot of iced-tea, and was looking for a replacement for the cracked and scratched Mr. Coffee iced-tea maker carafe. Online: $9 and change plus $8 and change in shipping. At a major discount store in Montgomery: $19 for an entire new iced tea maker, including carafe. Cha Ching! But here's the rub: all of a sudden I'm getting awful, cloudy tea. Same model of tea and tea maker, same water source, no change in routine, but cloudy tea! Suggestions?

Media Corporate Hardball

See today's Washington Post for the story of threats from The NY Times Company to shut down the Boston Globe...union concessions are at the core of the battle.

Siegelman & Stevens

I don't want to brag, but I do believe I was the first person online (7:02 am on April 1st) to suggest a connection between Attorney General Holder's decision to drop the indictment against Sen. Ted Stevens and the fate of former Alabama Governor Don Siegleman. Now The Associated Press is reporting that Siegelman's lawyer has written to Holder, suggesting he do the same for the former Governor. And, by the way, Alaska Governor Palin has a point when she and other Alaska Republicans suggests a re-do of the U.S. Senate election won by Democrat Mark Begich. Since Stevens was the victim of prosecutorial misconduct by the Bush/Republican Department of Justice and lost the election by just a few thousand votes, shouldn't he be given another chance? There's probably no legal argument for a repeat of the election, but it would be fair.

Dem Bones were WASTE?

The Montgomery Advertiser has the story this afternoon about officials deciding some of the remains found next to the oldest cemetery in the city were actually "medical waste" from the mid 1970's, while other bones were from yellow fever victims from 200 years ago. But that seems to raise more questions than it answers. When do human bodies become "waste"? Is that what amputated limbs are? Anybody know what they do with a leg or arm after it's been cut from its living owner?

Endangering Hostages

I thought the lessons had been learned long ago about live broadcasting during situations when people are being held hostage, but apparently not. The violent incident in New York State today has been getting the usual wall-to-wall coverage, and at one point CNN displayed this note from a local TV station's web site, explaining that more than a dozen people had run to the basement and were hiding in a closet for more than an hour now. The incident is over now, apparently, with a dozen or more dead and the gunman killing himself in Binghamton. But suppose he had access to a TV and learned of the people hiding in the closet by watching it. And these days, with instant website updates by newspapers and bloggers, we all may hold peoples' fates in our hands.

Sparks for Governor

As I suggested yesterday, Democratic Ag Commissioner Ron Sparks has announced his candidacy for Governor. He's making the announcement in a series of press events statewide. He'll face Democratic U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, and maybe others, in the Democratic Primary next year.

"Literally" Watch!

[NOTE: I'm leaving this posting in place, but read the comment from Kevin L. He's convinced me the prez may be right...at least close enough to give him the benefit of a doubt!]

A first presidential alert on Literally Watch this morning! President Obama, in France, discussing the diamond business in Botswana: "they have literally seen the diamond market collapse." I certainly hope there were no fatalities!

President Bush was renowned for his grammatical creations, but I don't recall him getting into a "literally" trap.

["Literally Watch" is a public service of this blog, defending the original, and we maintain correct, usage of the word.]

Media Freelancers Unite!

WVTM Reporter Scott Mauldin was one of those dropped in the latest wave of cutbacks at the NBC affiliate in Birmingham, but he's not just sitting back waiting for a job offer. He's formed an online media gathering spot called Vulcan Media Team to give his fellow unemployed media types a way to attract freelance jobs. Wonder if I can be listed as a freelance "asker of annoying questions"? (-:

There is a growing pool of unemployed radio, TV, print, and PR workers as the recessions cuts deeply into corporate profits. Scott, by the way, was an occasional and always welcomed guest on "For The Record".

Social Media = MORE productivity

Using social media sites like Facebook makes employees better workers...so says a study reported on in today's NT Times....I dare you to copy the article and post it in the breakroom, or better yet, send it to the boss! If you feel comfortable doing so, you probably work in a place where they alredy know that's true. Every job, every workplace, needs some downtime. What is not needed is coworkers who do nothing but downtime!

The NY Times publishes my photo...

...not, not a photo of me, one I took. It's a reader-submitted photo feature about the impact of the recession across the country...see it here: Tim's Photo in the Times.

On the right is another one taken the same day. Documenting the change in my career, I suppose.

Funeral Disruptions

The ACLU has filed suit against a law in Michigan that makes it illegal to protest at funerals. According to the First Amendment Center website, 27 states, including Alabama, have approved such laws. They're fallout from The Rev. Fred Phelps, who's congregation at an anti-gay church in Kansas started protesting at the funerals of people who died of AIDS in the 1980's. Those protests got little notice outside the gay media, but when Phelps and kin started showing up at the funerals of the war dead from Iraq and Afghanistan there was an immediate legislative reaction in Congress and the state legislatures. The ACLU Michigan suit is on behalf of a Veteran and his wife, with no connection to the Kansas church, who protested against then President Bush at a Veteran's funeral and were arrested.

Folsom Not Running

According to Birmingham News reporter Dave White, Lt. Gov. Jim Folsom will not run for Governor in 2010, but instead will seek re-election to his current post, and that further narrows the Democratic field. Rep. Artur Davis is the only announced Democratic candidate, while Tim James is alone on the GOP side...though there are lots of others who are likely Republican candidates, like Postsecondary Chancellor Bradley Byrne. Troy University's Jack Hawkins dropped out of the GOP race earlier in the week. Democrat Ron Sparks has scheduled a series of news conferences for Friday to announce his decision, either Governor or Lt. Governor...which I think almost certainly means he's running for Governor. There's not nearly the campaign money (or power) in the Lieutenant Governor's office nowadays, so why spend all of the money and effort more than a year in advance to say you want to replace Folsom? We'll know for sure on Friday. [UPDATE: April 2, 2009 Brina Lyman in the Press-Register reports Democratic State Senator Roger Bedford is considering a run for Governor.]

30-Years Later: Arrington Redux?

Today's Birmingham News includes an interview with former Mayor Richard Arrington, who tells reporter Joseph D. Bryant he may run for mayor again in 2011. Arrington is 75, and also says he'll be active in this Fall's City Council races.

I took this photo when Arrington was in a runoff election for mayor in 1979, and accepted my invitation for a radio debate on WERC with his opponent, conservative lawyer Frank Parsons. He won 30-years ago this October 30th, becoming Birmingham's first black mayor on November 13th.

Grave Questions

Some of the skeletal remains found adjacent to the oldest cemetery in Montgomery yesterday are most likely victims of a yellow fever outbreak about the time of the founding of the city, in the 1820's. But this morning's Montgomery Advertiser reports that at least a couple of the remains date to 1976. It's easy to envision a mass grave being used to dispose of yellow fever victims in 1820, but in 1976? Would even paupers have been buried in unmarked graves that recently? Before doctors learned to control and treat it, yellow fever killed an Alabama Secretary of State and at least two legislators.

Does Ted Stevens = Don Siegelman?

Word this morning from NPR and CBS that Attorney General Eric Holder has decided to drop charges against Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens because of charges of prosecutorial misconduct. Could this lead the way to charges being dropped against former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman? And what of Healthsouth founder Richard Scrushy? Could Holder have decided dropping the charges against Stevens, a Republican, will ease the way to free Democrat Siegelman? Like Siegelman, Stevens was convicted, defeated for re-election, and was in the process of appealing. If anything, there was much less direct evidence against Siegelman than against Stevens, and similar allegations of misconduct by prosecutors. There have been Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the Siegelman case in which allegations of misconduct by prosecutors have been aired, and in recent weeks Bush White House aide Karl Rove had finally agreed to testify about Siegelman and other allegations involving the Justice Department, though that hasn't happened yet. Siegelman is free on bond pending his appeal. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit has upheld all but two of the charges against him, and last week his lawyers asked for a hearing before the full court ( not including former Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor, who has recused himself).