We're Number Two! We're Number Two!*

...from the bottom, when it comes to fat states. In fact almost all of the fattest states in America are neighbors. That's because, says the new report:

....of the region's socioeconomic status, and because poverty and obesity appear to be linked.

Poor but proud.
And fat too.
I do wonder how Georgia managed to evade the special fat club (They ranked 17th in the Nation.)

(*actually we tie with Tennessee for 2nd place.)

The new frontier (we can hope!).

     Finally, some courageous Alabama newspapers have decided no more anonymous comments after stories...almost.
     The Daily Home and it's sister papers will require an e-mail address be posted for each comment, which is certainly better than somebody with a fake cutesy online name to use while insulting and  mocking people. But you can create new email accounts every five seconds if you want, and then delete them once you're finished trashing someone.
     Better to use the already established policy for letters to the editor: a name and address, with just the real name used in the paper.
     Say what you want, you DO have freedom of speech!
     But have the courage to say who you are.
     Newspapers who let people take shots without any I.D. drag themselves down into the gutter with the commentators.
     

The Rick Barber-Abe Lincoln quandry

     Slate Magazine wonders if Alabama Republican run-off candidate for Congress Rick Barber is hurting himself by using Abe Lincoln in his campaign commercials.....after all, Lincoln may have been the first Republican President, but he was also on the "other side" in that rather nasty war 150 years ago....

MMMM # 101 - The Unmaking of The General

       You couldn't read a newspaper (or a blog) in the past week without finding analysis of the Stanley McChrystal story. It was a real wake-up call for the media and the military (not to mention The White House!)
      As The New York Times David Brooks would have it, the Rolling Stone reporter who broke the McChrystal story also broke ranks with legions of other reporters would have just let the good-old-boy General complain about the President in a frat house kinda way...and not report any of it.
     Frank Rich points out that the RS freelancer actually comes from a chronologically long line of non-establishment reporters who have broken historic stories.
     Mostly because of MSM embarrassment, Rolling Stone found itself defending the story.
     I suspect, if it had been The N.Y. Times that had shadowed McChrystal, the same comments might not have been made within the reporter's earshot. Perhaps McChrystal was just trying to be "cool"? Just one of the boys? Trying to impress the writer for what he saw as a pop culture rag? The Independent (the one in London, not Montgomery) suggested that was the case, not for The General, but for his younger staff, some of whom read the magazine.
     And while there's been a lot of commentary about The General's error in speaking in front of the reporter, the much more serious question is whether his thinking is commonplace in the modern military. The U.S. military answers to civilian leaders for a reason. We're the land of no military coups.
     One way or the other, you can be sure Generals (and everyone below them in rank) will be less likely to speak off the cuff from now on unless they've checked the nameplate of everyone in the room, but will they continue to privately mock their civilian masters? As surely as their own junior officers will mock them.

[UPDATE: The WP says military officials charge the RS reporter broke the rules in reporting off the record material.]
[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this blog.]

Porker of The Month (June 2010): Sen. Richard Shelby, Who Made Pigs Fly ...

Another example of political duplicity...

...as is we needed more.
     Artur Davis' vote against the Obama Health Insurance reform bill was one prime example of an elected official acting in his or her own interests rather than those he is paid to represent.
     Now Alabama's outgoing Republican governor Bob Riley is fighting for federal Medicaid funds at the same time the state's two Republican Senators voted against the money.
     Senators Sessions and Shelby also voted against extending unemployment benefits at a time when there is historic unemployment in Alabama. In both cases they say it's because they don't want to add to the national debt. You do have to wonder where that same concern was all of those times the good Senators voted for this pet project or another in the past year or two.
Want an example? See the entry above, in which the Shelby is named "porker of the month" for June.

Perry County lawsuit

Residents of Perry County Alabama have filed a Federal lawsuit against the coal ash being transported by train from Tennessee, where a TVA ash pond accident spilled huge quantities of the remnants of the coal burning process on the land and in a nearby river. 

OTR this Sunday

     Second Congressional District Republican runoff candidates Rick Barber and Martha Roby will be featured on Sunday's On The Record.
     The program was originally scheduled to air two weeks ago, but a "sudden death" golf event  preempted the program.
     In Montgomery you can catch the program at 5:30 Sunday afternoon, just before 60-Minutes.
    Both GOP runoff candidates for Governor will be features on programs before the July 13th runoff.

Shelf Life

      The container of Fischer's Italian Seasoning in the photo on the left...a mix of the usual suspects: thyme, sage, rosemary oregano etc... has been kept in a cool dry place since I purchased it.
      A friend insists that it should be replaced because it has an expiration date of April 10...2004. (Although I swear I actually bought it a number of years before that! So it could be as old as a decade, and maybe a bit more.)
     I'm not cheap..not too cheap anyway, but it seems that the spices smell just as they should, look fine, and I've used them now and then (obviously not very often!) without any illness.
     If the Fischer people still make the product, it's not obvious from any web presence I could detect.
Any thought about the toss or save question?
     This web site suggests four years as a limit if the product is stored carefully.
     And yes, I know it would cost only a few dollars to replace it, but...but....

Moviemakers

     Time is running out for moviemakers who want to compete in The Montgomery Film Festival. The deadline has been pushed back to July 15th....the complete rules are at the link above.
    The Festival itself is at the Capri Theater in Montgomery on July 24th.

    You can watch the 2009 winners here.

Gulf Shores Weekend Forecast

Friday, Saturday & Sunday

Mostly Sunny

Highs: 94-98 

Lows: 69 - 73 

Rain Chances: 30%

Oil Chances: 95%

        

                                          

Anchorcide 101, Chapter 3

     In the continuing story of people looking for ways to help snakes find me and have me for dinner, the producers of CBS-8 This Morning managed (again!) to get me and a snake in the same county. See photo above from earlier this week.

    The only reason I am able to write this blog post is that I strictly obeyed Tim's Rules for Snake Distances:

Distance "A": This is the distance most snakes can leap from a slithering still position. Note that it ends short of my face, and I am therefore probably safe. Maybe. The really big snakes can jump only shorter distances, but they will crush your bones if they do hit you.

Distance "B": This is the least distance you should keep a decoy from you. The decoy is supposed to look more like a snake gourmet dinner than you. This fella is from the Montgomery Zoo, so he may have treated himself with special Ball Python repellent and be useless as a decoy....but I figured I could always push him into the snake's path, which brings us to...

Distance "C": this is the most direct line between you and the killer snake. All killer snakes know this, somehow, and can fire themselves like an arrow along it, especially if they are lazy snakes and don't want to make a leaping attack as displayed in distance "A".
     The only reason I survived CBS8TM that day was the professional handler they sent along kept a good grip on the viper's thrusters (see below). I had to bribe her to do it, but it was worth it. I didn't want the show producers seeing me writhing on the floor in the grips of the only killer ball python in existence. It would make too good a lead story for the Noon show.

M(T)MMM #100 - Privacy Law + "The AP"

     As a reporter who has struggled to obtain story information in the era of the privacy provisions of the law known as HIPA, I find it impossible to believe that the Alabama hospital in this story has determined there was no violation.
     Someone in the hospital faxed the names of some students hurt in a bus accident to a local law firm specializing in liability lawsuits. And this hospital---after months of investigation---has apparently determined there was no violation? The employee involved may have violated hospital policy, and whoever he or she is (ironically, that information is private!) could be disciplined.
     Should those names be public? If the incident that put them in the hospital was a public event, I believe it should. If taxpayer funded police and fire departments were involved in the incident, I personally believe that raises the event to the level where the names and conditions of the people involved should be public. Obviously Congress disagreed with me when they approved HIPA.
     But if releasing a name to the media is a violation of the person's privacy, how is releasing the name to a law firm not a violation?

ALSO: CNN has cancelled it's agreement with The Associated Press, a decision that may put the nail in the coffin of that venerated news gathering agency. That has great implications for the future of news gathering, and I'll write more about it in a future MMMM.

[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature on this blog, usually on Mondays, but sometimes, on other days of the week (like today, a Tuesday). Hard to believe this is the 100th I've posted.]

Happy 100th to me!

   

No-name commentators

     Excellent (and exhaustive) story in the Boston Globe today about the anonymous comments that follow virtually all newspaper stories today...the addition of the TalkRadio element to journalism is what I call it.
     Meanwhile another paper has decided to require names with comments...
     Please, please let this be the shifting of opinion to require people to have the courage of their convictions. They should be free to comment...as long as they identify themselves!

Tide Fans....

...may enjoy watching the interesting slide show at this website showing Bryant-Denny stadium through the years...1925 till the most recent expansion, which will make it the 4th largest college stadium in the country, with seating for some 101,000 people, every one of which want to park next to the gate.

MMMM # 99 - Internet Dumbing Down etc etc

The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus has hit the nail on the head in her column about the dumbing down of the world caused by the Internet....but the process started a long time ago, way before the net existed. While you might argue that Cliff Notes was the origin, I would say it was the arrival of consultants who dumbed down much of TV News to the point where "sound bites" now average :07 in length.

*****

ALSO: The reporter becomes the news: Eileen Jones, a long-time reporter at the NBC affiliate here in Montgomery was charged with a felony last week at the scene of a story when she allegedly ran over a police officer's foot and refused his order to stop driving. Is it a story? Uh, yea, as it would be had it been any other public figure. So it was reported in the Montgomery Advertiser (link above) and on our news at CBS-8 too. And yes, there was a report on WSFA's site, though they didn't use her mug shot.

WSFA itself isn't commenting, saying it's a confidential station matter. Now just what would reporter Eileen say to some official who fed her a line like that?
Right.
Good luck to her..I hope it all works out. She's always been very nice to me.
And by way of advice...my lawyer many, many years ago told me this: do whatever the officer says. We'll fight it later in court.

*****

AND FURTHERMORE: We may have hit a new low, or it happened sometime ago and I'm just now noticing it, but a Washington Post article includes quotes from anonymous readers of British newspapers....the kind of comments you can read these days in any paper anywhere. Great technique...it allows a writer to pick and choose comments by anonymous writers to make his or her point in the article.

CSS Alabama artifact for sale

     A pistol belonging to an officer on the CSS Alabama is for sale. Lieutenant Arthur Sinclair was said to have given the pistol to the owner of The Deerhound after that English steam yacht picked up Sinclair, Captain Raphael Semmes, and other officers and men of the CSS Alabama when she sank in the channel off France.
     That story is unconfirmed, but presuming the pistol did in fact survive the sinking of the ship along with the Lieutenant, it would make quite a conversation piece. Asking price is by the English auction house is about 15,000 pounds....about $22,200 in dollars.
     Sinclair is on the left in this photo on board the Alabama.....the person in the background may be the only African-American on board the shop when she sank, but tha's a story for another time.

    Good luck bidding!

Save The Money!

     All of those millions from BP being spent on ads to convince tourists to come to the Alabama beaches are a waste of time. Look at these photos from today's Sunday Montgomery Advertiser. And before you kill the messenger, what do you expect the media to do? Fake clean beaches?
     Yes, there are other attractions in South Alabama, and perhaps they'll be a lure for some tourists, but the beach community should give up on Summer 2010, forget the ads, get as much compensation as possible from BP, and clear the way for Summer 2011.

Men in Aprons

     The Great Recession has increased the number of so-called house husbands...the men who stay home while the wife holds down the full-time job with benefits.
     And now there's a web site aimed at their needs.
     It is somewhat amazing to me that in 2010, gender roles are still as cemented as they are....that there needs to be special consideration given to men in the position of housekeeper and/or child raiser.
    The New York Times just recently featured an article in their Sunday magazine about men in Sweden using paternity leave. Here's a quote from that story:

“Many men no longer want to be identified just by their jobs,” said Bengt Westerberg, who long opposed quotas but as deputy prime minister phased in a first month of paternity leave in 1995. “Many women now expect their husbands to take at least some time off with the children.”

   Whatever. I'm glad to pass along the links, to be of assistance to the American men wearing the aprons, men who've no doubt learned to respect how hard it is to do all that stuff around the house and with the kids...and look good doing it too, even if it means wearing an apron with tractors on it. 

On The Record this Sunday

     The Democratic runoff candidates for the congressional seat being vacated by Artur Davis will be guests on CBS 8's OTR. Shelia Smoot and Terri Sewell will compete in the July 13th runoff, and the winner will face the winner of a republican runoff.

     We've had some schedule difficulty with golf running long during the campaign season and I hope that will not be the case this Sunday at 5:30 when the program is scheduled. But if it does, it will air at 11:00pm following the hour-long CBS-8 Sunday night news.

     One way or the other, we discuss health care, balancing budgets, unemployment, and even North Korea.

BP, Oily Pelicans, and Morality

     The AP has generated a story about some evangelists who are on the Gulf Coast to deal with the moral issues of man-made environmental damage.
     That's a nice change from the preachers and politicians who credit disasters on God. Remember when lame duck State Senator Hank Erwin said Katrina was punishment for those sinners on the coast? Here's the story from 2005:
================================================================

IN KATRINA'S WAKE

Senator: God judging U.S.
with disastrous hurricanes
Alabama Republican cites culture
of 'gambling, sin and wickedness'

Posted: September 29, 2005
1:00 am Eastern

© 2009 WorldNetDaily.com

An Alabama state senator says the reason why the Gulf Coast is suffering from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is because God is judging Americans in that region for sinful behavior.

"New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast have always been known for gambling, sin and wickedness," wrote Sen. Hank Erwin, R-Montevallo, in a column, according to the Birmingham News. "It is the kind of behavior that ultimately brings the judgment of God."

Erwin said he was awed, but not surprised after surveying the damage to hard-hit regions including Gulfport and Biloxi, Miss., and the fishing town of Bayou La Batre on the Alabama coast.

"Warnings year after year by godly evangelists and preachers went unheeded. So why were we surprised when finally the hand of judgment fell?" he wrote. "Sadly, innocents suffered along with the guilty. Sin always brings suffering to good people as well as the bad."

Robert Baxter pushes Grand Marshal Robert Doucet Sept. 7, 2005, during homosexuals' Southern Decadence Parade in Exile in Lafayette, La., just 9 days after Hurricane Katrina (courtesy: The Daily Advertiser)
"America has been moving away from God," continued the former talk-radio host and now a media consultant and senator. "We all need to embrace godliness and churchgoing and good, godly living, and we can get divine protection for that point.

"The Lord is sending appeals to us," he said. "As harsh as it may sound, those hurricanes do say that God is real, and we have to realize sin has consequences."

Erwin said the catastrophic storms are part of a pattern evident in the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, claiming God has removed an umbrella of protection from America due to an increase in abortion, pornography and prostitution.

"If you are believer and read the Bible, you know sin has judgment," Erwin said. "New Orleans has always been known for sin. ... The wages of sin is death."

"I have no idea what sort of senator or politician Mr. Erwin is, but he's sure no theologian," William Willimon, bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church, told the News. "I'm certainly against gambling and its hold on state government in Mississippi, but I expect there is as much sin, of possibly a different order, in Montevallo as on the Gulf Coast. If God punished all of us for our sin, who could stand?"

Fisher Humphreys, a professor of divinity at Samford University, didn't respond directly to Erwin, but he did say Christians believe God cares about sin.

"There is a standard about right and wrong conduct, and God is fully aware of whether our conduct measured up to the standard or not," Humphreys said.

As to God's control of events, he told the News different believers answer the question differently.

"A God that is irrational and vindictive, and filled with anger – that understanding of God is not the understanding we find in Christ. We don't believe in a God that is vindictive or cruel."

However, the Book of Revelation describes the return of Jesus Christ to Earth, using terms indicating God is filled with wrath, and will Himself slay many people:

[I]n righteousness he doth judge and make war. ... And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. ... And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh. (Rev.19:11-21)

As WorldNetDaily previously reported, some believe Katrina is divine judgment for U.S. support of the ouster of Jewish residents of Gaza.

There have also been claims from some political leftists such as Robert F. Kennedy and Barbra Streisand that the hurricane activity is being heightened by so-called global warming, rather than any action by God.

That idea has been refuted by Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, who says hurricanes historically have appeared in an up-and-down cycle.

"The 1940s through the 1960s experienced an above-average number of major hurricanes, while the 1970s into the mid-1990s averaged fewer hurricanes," Mayfield told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee's Subcommittee on Disaster Prevention and Prediction.
================================================================
[DISCLOSURE: Back in the day, Hank and I did a "point-counterpoint" type of segment on Ch 42 TV in Birmingham a couple of times a week. He's still in broadcasting, hosting a radio show up there, and I'm still on TV, in Montgomery.]

$ave Her!!!!!

     So when somebody risks their life voluntarily, should taxpayer pay for the rescue effort? That's the question being asked about the rescue of the teenaged girl who tried to sail around the globe singlehandedly. (Thanks to J.C. to the story tip!)
     Seems like a slippery slope to me....if a driver was driving too fast and has a wreck, then we charge him for the rescue squad, but not if he was obeying the speed limits? Seat belt usage?
     Be careful out there!!!!

SCOTUS on the beach...

     Interesting (and, as usual, close) decision from the high court involved Florida Panhandle beach property and private property rights, The NY Times has the story.

     I had thought that there was no such thing as private beachfront...that you had to allow people passageway at the shoreline, but apparently not.

I AM a bamboo killer.

..... and proud of it too.
     In both Birmingham and Montgomery, I have helped keep the Roundup company in the black. I have sprayed enough roundup to kill bamboo (and kudzu) up on 16th Avenue South in Birmingham and here in the Garden District to qualify as a black belt in the fine art of bambooicide.
     So now comes some con artist trying to sell Alabama's Black Belt on the idea of intentionally planting bamboo as a crop.
     Note that in this article there is NO mention of what to do when the crop planting experiment is over.

     I did a story about a Kudzu farm here in Alabama on APT. Yup. Some Japanese company decided Alabama was the perfect place to grow it (maybe their first clue was the houses covered with the stuff???)
     Now picture the entire black belt....All of those rural counties with rich lovely soil...covered completely with 100 foot tall, 18 inch diameter bamboo stalks! Picture the poor folks who worked all their lives to keep up a nice farmhouse with a few dozen acres only to have it invaded by bamboo, tearing apart foundations, taking over fields and playgrounds, backyard gardens and even football fields!!!!!
     Think before you plant. What price sanity?

146 years later...

     One of the cannons from the CSS Alabama has made its way to Mobile....the first time the weapon has ever been in Alabama, despite the ship's name. The restored cannon has been delivered to The Museum of Mobile 146 years, almost to the day, after the ship was sunk in a Civil War battle off the coast of Cherbourge France.

     The wreckage was located in the 1980's, and the cannon is one of the parts raised from the floor of the channel.
      It will replace a reproduction that's been on display for some years.
     The Alabama was built for the Confederate Government in England, a fact that later resulted in Britain paying compensation to the U.S. Government for violating their pledge of neutrality.

    The ship never made port in the South or the North. It roamed the seas, taking and mostly burning Northern ships of commerce.
     The Alabama Department of Archives and History has Captain Raphael Semmes CSS Alabama journal in its collection, and has just recently digitized it and made it available online here.
[Note: the journal is a big file and takes a while to load. Be patient!]

Economic Bathroom Priorities

     How soft is soft enough...and at what point does softness get to be luxury. Yes, some economists are pointing to the increased sale of extra thick and soft toilet paper as a sign of the economic recovery, points out Executive Associate Editor-In-Chief J.C....here's the story.

     The story brings to mind the incredible American tragedy of those people who never learned that they are supposed to change the roll when one is finished. And that brings to mind Bob Corley's song:

Why Can't Some People Change the Toilet Paper Roll?

And it just so happens you can buy a copy of the single here, for just .99 (where did they put that "cents" sign on modern typewriters, anyway???) Go ahead...what's .99 cents anyway? Or listen to some of the other tracks on the CD and splurge...make it a Father's Day gift to Bob!

Zap.

This story tip comes from J.C., the editor type, not the other one, though I suppose that too would be appropriate. If sinnin' causes earthquakes and storms....does lightning count? Then what does this mean?

I have flat crossed OVER!

     No, I'm alive, but if there was ever a doubt that I am as much a Southerner and an Alabamian as anyone with five generations in the state, this will prove it.
     Listening to NPR Saturday afternoon when "This American Life" came on, and soon I found myself sneering at the haughty, know-it-all flavor of the broadcast..."smarmy snark" I might say...but what I actually said to the empty kitchen, as I grabbed the remote to change to a CD, was this:

"...get lost you **&^!#2* liberal Northeast elitist snobs!" 

     OK, maybe I didn't use those exact words, but it's close.

     This from the guy who was born in New York City, The Bronx no less.

     But it's true how annoying the show can be! The 'tude!!!! Where's Lewis Grizzard when we need him?

Father's Day

Tired of ties? Are golf-related gifts old hat? How about giving Dad a "beer holster*"?

     When it comes to dumb gifts, this ranks up there with the "chair" for dogs, so they can join you at the table. And if you're saying "But wait a minute Tim, I think this is a great idea!", then you've been drinking so much you don't put a bottle down long enough to need a holder!

     But wait, maybe this IS a great gift for Dad...if he's been drinking way too much, give him a holster so he CAN lay it down, if only for a few minutes. Heck, buy him two! That way Dad can really look like a total dork!

[*In the spirit of the Wild West, this holster keeps his beer ready for a quick draw whenever the need arises. Made of rugged leather, it snaps onto any standard belt and the adjustable nylon strap wraps around the thigh for additional support. A fun accessory for parties and tailgates, it also makes a convenient holder when he needs his hands free for grill duty. Exclusively from RedEnvelope.

* made of rugged leather
* adjustable nylon strap for additional support


* holster fits a 12 oz. can or bottle]

And one more thing...

...Let's not text while FLYING. Especially during landing and takeoff?
Used to be all you had to worry about was keeping the pilot out of the bar before takeoff...now there's the urge to text, perhaps forgetting little details like landing gear??

Oil reaches Alabama's beaches

     The photos showing the oil on the al.com website are disgusting. CBS TV reports from Gulf Shores too, talking with the mayor and businesspeople. The thick oil covering Alabama;s shore is not a pretty sight.
     Almost yearly since I moved to Montgomery 12 years ago, I've enjoyed a long-weekend trip to the coast, usually right after the season ends with Labor Day. I can't imagine this mess will be over by then.

     And not to be an alarmist, but there's also a post floating around the net suggesting there will be no end to the oil leaking into the Gulf, that BP has essentially killed the Gulf of Mexico.

[UPDATE: When I posted the above link, I wondered about not seeing his theory anywhere in the MSM. This morning I did a Google News search under his name and the word geologist. Not a single MSM return. Anyway...take his theory with a grain of oil-soaked sand if you will. The fact that not a single newspaper has printed his material raises LOTS of questions!]

 Here's how I remember my trips to the Gulf beaches. Are these photos the only way to experience this again?

Blog SIGNS

     What's the first sign?.... a blogger apologizes for not having posted as much as usual? Then there are excuses about being busy, about work and family, about..stuff? If you post less than three or four times a week, is it worth it?
     The second sign might be messing with a longtime blog design, or eliminating a longtime blog element...sure, everything needs refreshing, but is it change for the sake of change?
     Then the third sign might be taking a "sabbatical" from the blog, just a week or two while he or she is off traveling (or not).
     And those inevitably end with the solemn announcement that "after doing this for x number of months or years"...he or she has decided to end his or her blog. Sigh.
Or is the first sign writing a post that being with the question

What's the FIRST SIGN?

The AG Speaks...and Tim James reluctantly listens....

 If Tim James wasn't fond of Troy King before now....
     AG says no challenge till after runoff results.
     Looking more and more like a Byrne vs Bentley event on July 13th.
     This race is a great example for teachers to prove to kids that every vote does count. If Tim James had perhaps made one more speech, or done one more TV interview...or if Robert Brantley has done one less thing...

.....and speaking of runoffs...this week's On The Record features the GOP runoff candidates in the 2nd Congressional race, Rick Barber and Martha Roby. Just before 60-Minutes on Sunday, 5:30pm on CBS-8 in Montgomery.

[UPDATE: James holds news conference, says he's not withdrawing, BUT the GOP is not inclined to support his recount effort. Says he'll wait till after the recount for make a more definite decision. He blasts lame duck Attorney General Troy King, calls him a terrible lawyer. Could this be the Republican's 1986???While there are comparisons, Baxley-Graddick = Hunt, but Bentley-James won't = Sparks.]

**FLASH!** Caught Dead!!!

     The controversy over The Globe publishing photos of Gary Coleman on his deathbed builds on a rich tradition in the U.S. Press.
      It wasn't all that long ago that the public expected to see photos of dead criminals, in their coffins, as proof the person had in fact died.
     FBI agents who caught and killed "Pretty Boy" Floyd displayed his body for the media.

     A photo of bank robber Jesse James in his coffin was turned into a collectible "stereographic" photo.

     Just a year ago, the Pentagon decided to allow photos of the closed coffins of those killed in combat!         

    And there have been controversies about newspaper photos showing mortally wounded U.S. troops.

    During the Civil Rights 1960's,  Emmett Till's mother insisted on an open coffin for her murdered son, proof of how he had been beaten to death. A photo of the boy's mangled face and head was published in papers on the front page.

     During the civil war, Mathew Brady and others originated combat photography, and bodies were part of the display. A photo was even secretly  taken of President Lincoln in his coffin.

     It seems to me that Newspapers and TV display pictures of dead bodies more frequently when they are far away from home....the body of a dead Iraqi soldier is much more likely to make it into print or on the tube than that of a U.S. soldier mortally wounded.
     Sometimes a photo show the seconds before death...as in the famous "falling man" photo on 9/11. That man was never identified, which also makes it easier for an editor to put a picture in, or a TV station to air video. Would they have used the photo if he had been identified?
     One of the most iconic photos of the Vietnam War was of a South Vietnamese soldier executing a prisoner...a photo of a death.
     Remember the L'Express Commuter plane crash in Ensley, just outside Birmingham in 1991? There was live television footage shown in which the blackened body of a victim could be seen still strapped into his or her seat. Live TV is fraught with dangers like that.
     Gary Coleman is far from alone.
     There is always a morbid curiosity about the end, and always a media willing to exploit it.


   

The SINKHOLE that wasn't....

Seems the sinkhole in Central America---the one that looks more like an alien launch site--- isn't a sinkhole after all, and least not technically. Here's the explanation..

Better Arizona than Alabama!

     A school is lightening the pigment of the skin of some elementary students depicted in a mural... because of complaints about the race of the students?
     Here's the Arizona Republic story.
     Now this an example of a school really doing some teaching.
     Unbelievable.
    
(Thanks to Executive Associate Senior Editor J.C. for the tip.)

About Artur Davis and Robert Bentley...

     Lots of theories going around about how Davis lost by such a large margin to Ron Sparks on Tuesday, and why Robert Bentley did as well as he did, perhaps landing in a runoff with GOP leader Bradley Byrne.
     I'll cite one factor for each result...a factor I quoted to folks numerous times in the days leading up to the election:

1) Artur Davis' vote against President Obama's Health Care Reform legislation was such an obvious ploy for white conservative votes that it was impossible to interpret any other way. It turned off liberal black and white voters, who could then vote for Sparks without any guilt. For all his spinning, Davis' vote said he cared more about getting elected than about his own Alabama constituents. And, of course,  it didn't buy him any conservative white support anyway!

2) On the GOP side, Robert Bentley's candor and his promise not to take a salary connected with voters. Even if the salary promise was mostly symbolic, voters seemed to appreciate it as an honest statement in an election when there was plenty of truth stretching.

Sunday afternoon at 5:30 on CBS-8 in Montgomery, On The Record features the chairs of the Alabama Democratic and Republican parties about the election results, crossover voting, the tea party influence and more. Join us!
[Note: The Washington Post's answer to the question "who had the worst week in Washington" is....Artur Davis.]

[ALSO: CNN's Roland Martin says Davis' refusal to go on black media was part of the "arrogance" that led to his defeat.}

To the RIGHT and the LEFT of the oil spill.

     I'm about over the extremes in the oil spill commentary. Was it Limbaugh who said the ocean is big and will heal itself? (That was after he abandoned his suggestion that leftist environmentalists has sabotaged the oil platform.) Please.
     Then Friday night, Brian Williams intoned that the oiled birds were going to die "although they did nothing wrong". Please x2.
     Rush...in a thousand years or so you'll probably be right. In the meantime, would you be so kind as to support the people who are left unemployed because of big oil and little government's collusion?
     And Brian...no, the bird's didn't do anything wrong. They didn't do anything right either. Birds just are, despite your pious attempt be anthropomorphic about them, treating them like small human with wings.

     On top of that, we're treated to the spectacle of a suddenly attentive media watching for anger in President Obama's voice. Is he angry enough? Was that a twitch in his left eye? Please x 3. Much better to criticise Obama instead of remembering it's all of those little government advocates like Governors Jindal and Riley who suddenly want the big bad government to come save 'em.

     Not much concern about the ballooning federal debt that's going to drown our children now, is there?
 
  Sure, BP may pay in the long run, but they could also just go file for bankruptcy and tell all of where to put the oil wells.
[UPDATE: if you thought 'ol Tim was nuts when he wrote this...check this story out!]

Oil??? What oil????

From a story in the NY Times about the oil on the coast...

On the coastal island of Gulf Shores, some residents who had seen tar balls near their property said that their neighbors had told them not to talk about it. Ms. Callaway said that after she had appeared on television to talk about the tar balls on Dauphin Island, she, too, had received angry responses from locals. “I had people telling me, thanks a lot, you killed our tourist season.”

     As we learned, this technique worked so well during the Civil Rights era ("Protests? What protests??") I'm sure it has the approval of the PR folks at BP too.
     Shades of the Mayor and Council in the fictional Jaws ("Shark?What shark???")
     Killing the messenger is a winner strategy. For about 48 hours.
[UPDATE:  Mississippi's Governor is singing the same tune.]

You can't make this stuff up...

     The young Dutch man who was a suspect in the disappearance of Natalie Holloway is now wanted in the murder of a young woman in Peru exactly five years after the Holloway disappearance?
     If Jordan van der Sloot is innocent, he is about the unluckiest person on Earth.
     Or he was set up by a Mission Impossible like team out to achieve some street justice.
     Movie script anyone?

Behind The 2010 Primary Election Night Scene

     Some of the controled chaos of election night at CBS-8 last night.

The Million vs Billion quandry

     I hear people treat a "Billion" as if it's the next logical number after one Million...similar to going from a dime to a dollar.
     But a Billion is so much more than that. These graphics come from The MegaPenny Project, showing the relative size of a Million pennies and a Billion pennies....the web site goes into much more detail than i will here. They say, for example, that only in the U.S. is the word "Billion" used...elsewhere they refer to it as a Thousand-Million.

Race for Governor in the Times

     Alabama Davis/Sparks race is the subject of a story in the Times this morning.
     Meanwhile, today is the day.
     Pick a Primary, and vote. Otherwidse don't complain about the choices you have in November's General Election!

     CBS-8 will have wall-to-wall coverage tonight starting at 7:00pm. I'll be doing some live candidate interviews in that first (7:00pm) hour...then back for the "regular" CBS-8 This morning starting at 5:30.
And remember CBS-8 Online too!.