Tibetan monks studying science at Emory in Atlanta

     I thought for sure I was misreading it when I spotted this headline on an Atlanta Journal-Constitution story  online.
     Georgia? Monks? Science? A good read and a signpost of the global society.
     Oh, and Happy New Year to you all!
 
Tim

Animal Recession

     These are tough times for horses and smaller "pet" animals.

     The Great Recession is causing people in Ireland to abandon horses they adopted during the flush times, and now Arizona is suffering from a rash of horses abandoned there after they were used to carry drugs across from Mexico.

     Just about any animal shelter can tell you stories of smaller animals...dogs and cats...being dropped off by families having trouble feeding and caring for human members, much less the felines or canines.

     The rising tide lifts all boats, and vise versa.

A VERY Expensive Extracurricular Activity

     The University of Alabama spends $31 Million on Football, matching Ohio State's investment. The New York Times has the Associated Press story of how much the 70 Bowl-bound schools pay for their programs.
     The cheapest prgram going to a bowl is also in the State of Alabama---Troy University---with a $5-Million dollar program.

Ed Rendell's Frozen Brain

     When Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell went ballistic because the NFL Sunday night game was moved and rescheduled for tonight because of the big blizzard, he made a great point. But not the one that he wanted to make about the U.S. being a "nation of wusses".
     The point he made was that we take football way, way too seriously.
     Come on! To say America isn't the same country that won World War II because a game was rescheduled? Does he really think that weather would stop the U.S. military from fighting in an actual war?
     It's a game, Governor...a game!

     I suppose he feels the same way about the NFL's sudden found concern about concussions and brain injury. Wusses! Let 'em play hurt! Let 'em develop addled brains! Play the game!
     And let's make sure that the High Schools play under all weather conditions too, the hell with tornado warnings or floods or lightening. Get those kids out on the field to toughen 'em up for the real life world of the NFL! In fact let's remove those wussy helmets too...let 'em wear the leather caps that were popular back in the day!
     OK, I'll get off the soap box now.
     Your turn.

FREE tickets aren't.

Here's a quote to consider as the year ends:

“Unfortunately, the governor set a totally inappropriate tone by his dishonest and unethical conduct.

     No, it's not about Republican Alabama Governor Bob Riley and the free Iron Bowl tickets his office accepted each of his eight years in office....including this year, as he was calling legislators back to Montgomery for an emergency session to consider ethics legislation.
     The quote is from the New York State Ethics Commission Chair, discussing Democratic Governor David Patterson soliciting and accepting free tickets to the World Series. Patterson has been fined $62,125 for his action.

     Meanwhile Governor Riley says his office has received Iron Bowl tickets each and every year he's been in office, and it would be "disingenuous" to change that during his last year.
     When I asked the new Speaker of The Alabama House, Mike Hubbard, why he didn't just refuse to accept PAC to PAC transfer political donations as a statement that he was taking the high road, he said he had to play by the same rules as other candidates to win.
     That's not an argument you can make about the Iron Bowl tickets.
     It wasn't illegal for Riley to take the 20 free tickets each year, and if may even still be legal despite all of the ethics bills passed in his emergency session.
     But it certainly set a tone.
     Republican Governor-Elect Bentley rejected the tickets offered to him.
     Free tickets aren't.

MMMM #124 -- Paying for News

   

      It's been almost a year since the New York Times announced they would start charging for content:

Starting in January 2011, a visitor to NYTimes.com will be allowed to view a certain number of articles free each month; to read more, the reader must pay a flat fee for unlimited access. Subscribers to the print newspaper, even those who subscribe only to the Sunday paper, will receive full access to the site without any additional charge.

     Yet here we are just days away from the start of 2011 and there's not a peep from the Times website. Have they changed their minds? Delayed their plan? Are they waiting to spring it on us on next Saturday's start of the New Year?
     And just what will the "certain number"of free articles be?
     Obviously the owners of just about every paper in the world will be watching what happens closely. So am I. What happens could determine the future.

Even More Ignoring of The Civil War...by the North!

     When I blogged earlier this month about the 2011 150th Anniversary of the war, I wrote that there seemed to be more notice given to the war in the North than here in the South...but New York State, which had as big a stake in the war as about any other, has no official recognition planned, according to the NY Times.

     There was a significant Alabama wartime connection with New York too...Raphael Semmes went there shopping for war supplies before the war, and once the fighting started, he sailed towards New York City to attack the Manhattan!

   In an earlier posting, I wrote about his journey on the CSS Alabama.
   You have to wonder how much the War anniversary would be ignored there if Semmes had not been blocked by ship damage from a hurricane and a shortage of coal for his boilers!

The Air We Breathe

     An opinion piece in the NY Times points to the coming GOP control of the U.S. House as trouble for the EPA. If the writer is correct, and the House is able to block the agency by way of limiting funding of investigating it into oblivion, then it may have an impact on two issues of interest to Alabama in General and Montgomery in particular.

     The EPA was supposed to announce months ago whether it will change the amount of ozone allowed in Montgomery's air...a change that could limit new industry in the city.

     And then there's the the coal-ash question. The EPA is determining if the byproduct of coal fired power plants should be regulated more. You'll recall the huge coal-ash spill at the TVA plantTennessee almost exactly two years ago, with the spilled ash carried by train to a commercial dump in Perry County Alabama.

WWJP

A "charity" food organization that works with churches in 31 states, including many in Alabama, is under a microscope because its founder, his wife, and their son, are all paid rather hefty salaries for the work with the poor...about a million dollars among the three of them, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

According to the Angel Food Ministries website, they work with 147 Alabama churches, including several in Montgomery:

Community of Hope, Inc.

Fresh Anointing House of Worship (formerly International Church)
Grace Worship Center
The Church of God of Prophecy

I'd guess "Pastor Joe" and his family have some great booty under their tree this year.
Merry Christmas Pastor...and by the way, just what would Jesus Pay?

[ADDENDUM: Angel Food Ministries  was favorably recommended on the NBC "Today" show last month.]

Wetumpka Herald on Ethics Bills

share My friend Kim Price, Publisher of The Wetumpka Herald, has a well considered editorial this week about the ethics legislation approved in the Special Session...the legislation signed by Governor Riley surrounded by Boy Scouts.

Real Warriors

     Alabama's Joe Turnham, quoted in a Wall Street Journal story this morning:

"Sometimes you have to subtract to add, and once you get down to the real warriors, you can fight," said Joe Turnham, chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party. He said he has made dozens of phone calls in recent weeks to surviving Democrats to make sure they weren't considering leaving.

     Joe, so course, is not expected to continue as one of those warriors...he's going to be replaced as Chair of the party. And just who is he talking about anyway?
     Perhaps another departing "real warrior"...Primary candidate for Governor Artur Davis had the right idea when he suggested what's really needed is a third party. Of was that because he no longer has a home in either major party after blasting both of them in the bruising and losing campaign?

Emory

     You may have watched the story we aired on CBS 8 in November about the claim by former Montgomery Mayor Emory Folmar that he shot a criminal suspect.

     It was not a story we expected to find when we scheduled the interview.

     This Sunday, the majority of that interview will air as the last On The Record of 2010.

     The Mayor talks about today's Republican politics, The Todd Road incident, his management style, racism, running for Governor and being trounced by George Wallace, and more.
                                                                                         

     Folmar is 80, and runs the $300 Million ABC Board as a Bob Riley appointee. So far, Governor-Elect Robert Bentley has not said if he'll reappoint the former Mayor to that position.

The On The Record episode airs on CBS 8 in Montgomery at 5:30 this Sunday afternoon 12/26/10

Others' Childhood Memories

     I posted Friday about my memory of that mid-air plane crash in New York City in 1960, perhaps the first time in my then young life that I paid attention to a news story.
     Now Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's memory of his childhood in the racial 1960's is a hot topic. He says he doesn't remember it "as being that bad" in Yazoo City, and says the Citizen's Council there were forces for good that kept the Klan out of town.
    To malquote Billy Joel: The bad old times weren't always bad, tomorrow's not as good as it seems.
    Too bad some of the people who were featured in a 60 Minutes report on Sunday didn't grow up in Yazoo City. They have virtually perfect memories of everything in their lifetimes.

     Barbour does remember hearing Rev. Martin Luther speak in Yazoo City, but he doesn't remember what he actually said. Barber was just fifteen at the time, and is probably right when he says he and his friends were more interested in the girls at the outdoor speech.
     Bt Tuesday, Barbour was singing a different tune, running away from the positive comments he had made about the (White) Citizen's Councils:

"Nobody should construe that to mean I think the town leadership were saints, either," he said. "Their vehicle, called the 'Citizens' Council,' is totally indefensible, as is segregation."

     That's quite an epiphany.

S*N*O*W on Christmas Day in Montgomery?

     The National Weather Service forecast includes the word snow for Saturday, and uses that mixed snow/rain icon. 30% isn't much, but the idea of snow this far South on the day itself is exciting.

     I'll see what Ashley and Micah forecast on CBS 8 this afternoon and in the morning.

Here are two shots of the last snowfall...in March of 2010.

     We never get much, but it's always such an unusual experience! Now if everyone will DRIVE CAREFULLY! And NOT buy all the bread and milk in the stores.

MMMM # 123 -- Google's New Media Popularity Machine

     The omnipresent search company came out last week with a tool to search thousands of books over the past century for words or phrases. Boring? Hardly. Addicting, I'd say. Why, for example, was there such a dramatic peak in references to Alabama around 1921? And why no equally huge spike in the 1960's during the Civil Rights Era?

      Try the program yourself, Compare two words---or two names---, and watch their use rise and fall over the decades.

     The data must be taken for what it is...especially in the earlier decades when magazines and newspapers may have been more widely read than books. The Ngram viewer only looks at books. But I'll be amazed if a combination tool searching everything in the world for a phrase won't be far behind.

     Som interesting examples..why has The University of Alabama at Birmingham's star fallen in recent years after dramatic growth? Watch Barack Obama go from absolute zero to top of the charts. And note that a search of Georgia and Alabama sees the two states follow a similar up and down path..indicating that they are treated only in reference to their location in the South rather than as individual entities? Or am I reading too much into it? Also...compare New York and New Jersey. No wonder the Garden State gets no respect.

     Have fun!

[ALSO: The group called "Media Matters" has published another internal memo from FOX News, this one about the "notion" of climate change. It has the bosses upstairs telling FOX reporters to question that "notion" in their stories.
    Interference from above is hardly unheard of in the news business. But at the best operations, reporters and news department managers are given editorial freedom to report the facts. Period.]

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



Jobs Analysis

     Friday's release of unemployment figures for November showed an uptick in Alabama to 9%. The national rate rose a bit to 9.8%. And it got me thinking about the whole jobless "recovery".
     The question isn't why companies are not hiring as the economy every so s-l-o-w-l-y recovers, it's why they would have any incentive to hire anyone!

• They've discovered they can make record profits with fewer people.
• There's so much competition for positions that workers are much more docile than in the roaring first decade of the new century.
• And then there's this: If Barack Obama and the Democrats represent more regulation to protect workers at the expense of companies, then why would employers hire more people in 2010? Why help Democrats win election? Better to hold off and collect the extra profit and hire later, if at all, once the Democrats have been tossed to the political gutter.

     I'm not suggesting that there was some kind of a meeting in which Corporate America agreed to stand in the way of an Obama success, but if just half of the top ten private-sector employers in the country held off hiring because they saw it as being to their own advantage...
     With the Republican takeover of the U.S. House, Republican Alabama Congressman Spencer Baccus is being promoted to Chair of the House Financial Services Committee. And what did he tell the Birmingham News about his new job?

 "In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks," he said.
He later clarified his comment to say that regulators should set the parameters in which banks operate but not micromanage them. "Now is the time to get government out of the way so businesses can create jobs and grow the economy," Bachus said.

     Perfect timing?

DADT

     Both of Alabama U.S. Senators were on the losing side of today's 63-31 vote to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell...though three other Republicans joined the Democratic Senate Majority for the vote. Geographically, it looked like a Civil War vote again, except South Carolina  and Virginia were on the other side...)
    The N.Y. Times has a map of the Senate yeas and nays.
    One Senator quoted the late Ultra-Conservative U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater's comment that "you don't have to be straight to shoot straight".
    It will be 60 days or so before the policy is actually repealed and various regulations are put in place. The ban was started by President Bill Clinton seventeen years ago. At least 14,000 service members were forced to leave during that time, and some say they will reenlist as soon as the change goes into effect.

[ALSO: The double talk of the day award goes to newly elected U.S Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) for this comment about the issue: On "don't ask, don't tell,"

Manchin said that he'd "spoken with many passionate West Virginians who hold different views on this policy" but reiterated his concerns over the timing of repeal."As such, while I believe the DADT policy will be repealed, and probably should be repealed in the near future, I cannot support a repeal of the policy at this time," Manchin said.

                                                                                                                 The Washington Post

     Manchin missed today's vote...the only MIA Democrat. He was at a party.]

1960

     There's a certain age we all reach at which we begin recognizing events beyond our own child's sphere of influence. Things that happen not in our own home, or in those of our neighbors. Not on our block, or the next one over.
     And such it was with this young boy in New York City on this day in 1960.
     Today's 50th anniversary of the Park Slope Air Disaster has received lots of coverage in the NY Media and on the networks as well. You can watch the CBS Report here.
     I lived about a dozen miles away from the place where 134 people on the planes and on the ground died in a huge fiery disaster. At first there was one survivor...a little boy almost exactly my age...who survived for a day, and then died from the smoke he had inhaled as he crawled out of the wreckage.
      Perhaps it was that boy's presence that made the incident one of the first big news events I remember. The photos of him and his family have the same feel as my own snapshots from that era.
     I had a scrapbook in which I pasted newspaper clippings about the crash, so it must have made an impression on me. That scrapbook may still be in a box somewhere around here.
     It's interesting how our reaction to disaster has changed since then. Today they dedicated a memorial marker to those who were killed 50 years ago. If the same event were to happen tomorrow, the marker would be in design phase within weeks. We've institutionalized grief, I think, and laid out a series of expected events. The candlelight service. The trip to the site by relatives of the victims. The memorials. And perhaps that's helpful to the people who are suffering from loss. A road map that may lead to resolution and peace.

PhoPoetry for the Recession

Going, going,  gone.

     A home left alone and empty, like a person abandoned, soon falls into disrepair. 

     With both, there are forces at work, forces that

     --unmitigated by the presence of someone to love--

    will have their way.

    Without heat or warmth,

    without scrubbing or caressing,

    without attention paid or windows cleaned,

    with no purpose left, 

    they fall to pieces.

    Gone. Gone. gone. 

 

Omen?

Copper thieves caused a fire that burned down the official Birmingham Alabama Christmas Tree.

Really.

Kids Quitting Ciggs, Taking Up Pot

     That's what a study from the National Institute on Drug abuse suggests:

 In 2010, 21.4 percent of high school seniors used marijuana in the past 30 days, while 19.2 percent smoked cigarettes.

     So the anti-smoking campaigns seem to be working, while the social (though not legal) decriminalization of grass is working too. TIME reported the dichotomy on it's website.

Mapping the hood

     The NY Times has put together a neat interactive map using census data that allows you to see the racial, economic and educational makeup of any neighborhood in America. Just enter an address in the space on the top right and voila!
     The best educated neighborhood in Montgomery? Census Track 14...the Southern section of the Old Cloverdale neighborhood. 96% of the population there has at least a High School Diploma. 30% have a Masters Degree or higher.
     Right next door, in Census Track 15, is the second wealthiest neighborhood in Alabama's Capitol City...a track that roughly follows Woodley Road headed East. 16% of the population there earns over $200k. The population out near Taylor Road..Track # 5406...is the wealthiest...20% earn over $200k.
     

Bad News, Bad News

     Depending on how you look at it, the list in The Washington Post story is either bad news for Alabama, or bad news for Alabama.
      It's a list of pork...the Top Ten States to which pork flows from Washington.
      Here 'ya go:
Top 10 states, per capita earmarks

Hawaii, $318
North Dakota, $234
West Virginia, $174
Vermont, $161
Mississippi, $142
Alaska, $140
Montana, $125
South Dakota, $112
Rhode Island, $79
Nevada, $79

Source: Taxpayers for Common Sense, fiscal 2010

     What? NO ALABAMA??? How many times have we been told what a great job our Congressional Delegation has been doing bringing dollars back from Washington? Where's Tom Bevill when we need him?
     On the other hand, since so many Alabama voters rail against pork and want a smaller Federal budget, perhaps we should be happy that our fine House and Senate members have wisely not brought home too much bacon?

And by the way, this is one instance in which I think using a per capita figure to compare states distorts the results. Raw numbers might be better here, no? And they  might show Alabama for the pork magnet she really is.

(Thanks to reader GJB in the absolute Pork Capitol, West Virginia, for pointing out this WP story to me!)

MMM # 122 : Mistakes

 "McCarthy was acting like this was Selma, Ala., in the '60s and he was Bull Connor."

     That geographic misplacement occurred in an AP story in today's Washington Post about a small upstate New York town where a Muslim mosque and cemetery caused a fuss. The story was not wrong...they accurately quoted the town official who was wrong.
     But mistakes make it into broadcast and print media every day.
     The PBS News Hour once identified Birmingham as the Capitol of Alabama.
      I've personally made some doozies on air over the years, and been called on them.
      People aren't shy about calling a newsroom and complaining, but a study a few years ago found that TV News errors aren't always a simple matter of a fact being incorrect. Sometimes the facts are correct but the story is wrong because it is out of of context, or because the station made the story bigger than it really was.
     I maintain that the very fact that a story is included in a TV newscast makes it bigger, and perhaps bigger than it deserves to be.
     How many times have you seen a fire or accident story on the evening news, only to see it reported as a paragraph in the morning newspaper website?
     And it's the constant need for "teases" and promos for stories that frequently get stations in trouble.
     The drama in a promo for a TV news story is intended to build it up..sometimes beyond what the story deserves. And the tease "Coming up! Dogs on the attack in East Alabama!" is frequently going to go too far as well.

     Newspapers have a corrections column, in which misspellings and other errors are acknowledged. But there's no such regular place on TV...the error has to be truly significant to merit an on-air correction. And even then, the audience watching when the correction is made is usually vastly different from the one that heard the error in the first place.

[PLUS: Words matter. FOX News reportedly insisted on specific language on-air to describe the "Public Option" in health care in a way that would convince the network's audience not to support it.]

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

Hunting in Decline?

      Just as Alabama officials try to increase tourism and hunting in Alabama's Black Belt, hunting is in decline, according to an AP story quoting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service...but there's no breakdown for Alabama that I can find in the story, and although the Fish & Wildlife people say they produce a report every five years, the most recent I can find is 2006, so I'm not sure just where the stats for the AP story are from. Nonetheless, they cite hunters retiring and young folks prefering computers as the cause. 

     Alabama Black Belt Adventures is the name of the state tourism's effort. Visit it here!
     No animals were hurt in the writing of this blog entry.

Nixon was wrong...

...when he said

"You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore..."

Thanks to his own Oval Office taping system,

     The latest audio tapes released by the Nixon Library allow us to hear the President attack the Irish and Jews and Blacks and Italians and...heck, did he like ANYBODY?

“The Jews have certain traits,” he said. “The Irish have certain — for example, the Irish can’t drink. What you always have to remember with the Irish is they get mean. Virtually every Irish I’ve known gets mean when he drinks. Particularly the real Irish.”..

          ...and so forth. 16 months after those comments, Nixon was boarding a helicopter to disgraceland.

   While Nixon isn't around to react, Henry Kissinger is. What will he say about this comment in a conversation with Nixon?

“The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy,” Mr. Kissinger said. “And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.”

[PLUS: As  I was saying...read this article from 12/17 in The NY Times.]

Ozone in Montgomery

    Several months ago, the EPA held a public hearing in Montgomery on the prospective reduction in the amount of ozone allowed in the air over the Capitol City. At the end of the hearing, it was indicated that a decision would come a month later...late in October. Here we are approaching the end of the year, and nothing.

     I took the photo on the top-right, by the way, above Birmingham in the late 1970's, when U.S. Steel was in full operation in Ensley.

    The EPA released a statement a couple of weeks ago reaffirming their concern about the issue, but saying they wanted to make sure they had all the information to make the correct decision. What???

    Then I read this story in today's L.A. Times and I began to see a trend. (Coal Ash is a main focus of the story...and it too is a concern in Alabama. Hundreds of tons of it has been dumped in Perry County at the for-profit Arrowhead Landfill. It was transported by train from Tennessee, where almost two years ago a huge coal ash pond dam broke, spilling it onto the land and water nearby.)
   
     When Mayor Todd Strange was a guest on CBS-8 This Morning on Tuesday, he said he had told the members of the Alabama Congressional Delegation about business concerns that if the limit on ozone was tightened, it could have a negative effect on business development in the city.
     Is that why there's been no decision by EPA?
     Will the incoming Republican controlled U.S. House be less likely to support increased EPA regulation?

War Coverage, 150 Years Later

     Not unexpectedly, I've seen more comprehensive coverage of the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War in the Northern (OK, Yankee) Media than here in The South. Slavery is the sticky issue.

     Officially, Alabama is lumping the Civil War Anniversary in with those the Indian Wars and the Civil Rights Era. "Becoming Alabama" is the umbrella title.

     Let me recommend to you an interactive map in the Times (the one in Yankee New York) that  is based on an original that apparently was a favorite of Abraham Lincoln.

     It shows the numbers and proportion of the slave populations in the Southern States in 1861 as the war started.
    Alabama's population was 45.1% slave...and five Black Belt counties had populations that were 3/4 or more slave: Greene, Sumter, Marengo, Dallas and Wilcox.
    The entire State of South Carolina---the first to leave The Union, was majority slave.

[UPDATE: an AP story about the very topic of slavery and South Carolina is in the Montgomery Advertiser here.]

The Holidays

How busy has this week been?
I looked back and realized I haven't had a single entry since Monday, that's how busy.
Between the regular full time CBS-8 schedule and wrapping up the ENG class at Trenholm (The final exam was Thursday), and trying to get things done for Christmas...yea, it's been a full week.
Hope you are well....Several entries coming up between now and Monday!

MMMM #121 -- "Real" News

     I have more than one friend who will suggest I read a story they've seen online on 'Yahoo News" or "Charter News".
     Yahoo as a news source? Charter? Comcast? Google?
     The "news" these sites assemble on the same page is a combination of AP material, Gossipy "entertainment news" and ads written to look like the rest of the pablum on the page.
     This process got underway way back when the "Entertainment Tonight" type shows came in vogue. They were more entertainment than news, and it wasn't long before consumers failed to see the difference. Meanwhile, the real news programs changed.
     The consultants took over and decided the best way to increase audience was to do only the stories viewers rated highly. Radio news is, of course, virtually nonexistent.
     And then came the National Enquirer and friends squeezing actual news in between the Aliens live in the White House basement! "features".
     When was the first time the MSM picked up a story from one of those rags and ran with it? Gary Condit? Clinton's cigar? Monica's black dress? Wilbur Mills and the stripper.
     I'll be teaching an Electronic News Gathering (ENG) course at Trenholm College here in Montgomery again in January, and one of the first pieces of business is to explain what news IS. That's becoming a harder and harder thing to do these days when a tweet alone becomes justification for a story.

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

Secrecy

     The U.S. Government has ordered federal workers (the ones with the frozen salaries for two years) NOT to read any of the leaked diplomatic cables that are being read by everyone else in the world.
     I suppose that way the Feds can feel some comfort in knowing that their secrets remain secret in at least one tiny patch of the globe.
     At least the employees can partly make up for their lost income by not buying papers or going online.
    

How bad is the economy?.

So bad that my accountant fired me!
No, really! My accountant fired me!.
    The termination letter was dated December 1st.
     It starts with a discussion about "a strategic review of resources" and the firm's "goals and revenue contributions"......and then comes the coup de grace:

......the result of all this strategic analysis is that we have made the difficult decision of referring selected clients to other competent firms. You are one of the selected clients......

     Kinda sounds like I won the lottery rather than got fired as a client, no? Selected client indeed!

     When I first took my business to him in the Mid-1980's, the individual who does (did) my taxes was the junior-partner of a two-partner Birmingham firm. But now he's now the full-partner in a much larger Birmingham firm.

      I'm not worth their trouble any more. Excess baggage. Small fry.
      There's a personal note on the bottom. It was  probably written by a robo pen. I'm sure they wouldn't want to use up precious resources on the little guy down in Montgomery.
      The note says he feels "terrible" about having to give me the bad news.
     I'm sure he does.
     Was it something I said? The way I signed my yearly multi-hundred dollar checks? Was the every now and then mid-year email with a question too troublesome? Was it my breath?
     Ironically, the day I received their snail mail letter* of dismissal, I also received an e-mail from the company inviting me to enroll in a new website for clients. I guess the email division wasn't sent a copy of my termination letter.
     Who's next? Will the water company discover I'm not using enough to justify keeping me on the rolls? Will Visa say I'm just not charging enough to make me worth their corporate attention?
     Anyway, after all of that time with the same person handling my rather limited books, I'm in the hunt for an accountant in Montgomery. Recommendations? Send me an email. I'll brush, I promise!

(*At least they get kudos for not doing it by email. I've already been fired once by phone, and I don't think I could take an even colder termination notice.)
 

Scottsboro Boys Closing

     The musical based on the infamous Scottsboro Boys prosecution in North Alabama is closing, according to The New York Times...a victim of not enough patrons.
     So is another musical...Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (picture an emo president).
     Maybe history based musicals aren't what theatergoers want to see right now? And maybe the economy has cut into the number of people going to Broadway shows in the first place.

The Minority Democrats on OTR

The longest serving member of the legislature..Representative Alvin Holmes (unofficially called The Dean of the legislature), and one of the freshmen...Representative Joe Hubbard (elected Minority Whip this past week) are the guests on Sunday's On The Record program on CBS-8 in Montgomery.

     You can watch the program on-air in Montgomery just before 60 Minutes...5:30pm, Sunday afternoon. The conversation includes this week's Special Session (which had not been officially been called when we taped the interview), the regular session in March, and, of course, Party Politics, with Democrats in a  minority position for the first time since Republicans established themselves in the state. Note: I did not write "for the first time in over a hundred years" as you see tossed around all the time. The Democrats during almost all of that century were politically what the Republicans are now. George Wallace was a Democrat. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican.

  

Ban the ignorant hateful comments!

     An Op-ed piece in the New York Times sings my favorite tune against all of those hateful, ignorant comments people make following online stories.
     Yes, they have free speech.
     They are free to go start their own newspaper.

Googling Rosa Parks

The folks at Google are honoring Rosa Parks today, using their ever-changing home page logo to depict a Montgomery City Bus and children. The Montgomery Bus boycott began fifty-five years ago today.

     And just for the record, a Google search of Rosa Parks name (in quotes) returns exactly 1,060,000 results (in .23 seconds). Weird that it would such an exact number no?

    Reminds me of the story I heard about the first men to climb to the top of Mt. Everest. They determined the height was 29,000 feet, but they gave a slightly different figure because they worried nobody would believe such an exact number. Later GPS measurements determined the mountain is 29,035 feet in height, so they were pretty close. Those measurements also showed the mountain is moving a couple in inches a year. Wait long enough and it may be in your backyard!

    There an an excellent interactive 360 degree video from the top of Everest here.

    None of which has much to do with Rosa Parks, except for the fact that she reached new heights for the Civil Rights movement with her simple yet monumental achievement 55 years ago today.