White House nominates George Beck for U.S. Attorney

     It took a couple of years, but Montgomery attorney George Beck has been nominated as U.S. Attorney for the Middle District in Alabama.

     To get a sense of the man, watch this online video of Mr. Beck when he was a guest of mine on a June 2007 For The Record  to discuss former Governor Siegelman's case. Journalists Bob Martin and Dave White are on the panel.

Which Alabama University Ranks in the Top 100 for Social Media?

StudentAdvisor.com drew up the list, and it includes only one.....

The University of Alabama is ranked #17.

Busted!

     The missing cobra at the Bronx Zoo is missing no more....he was found just in time to make a trip this weekend's Rattlesnake Rodeo in Opp!
     That link is to the TIME magazine story, which includes a sidebar about the ten best zoo escapes.

[Thanks to Chief snake and foreign-Correspondent Jay for alerting me to the arrest!]

Alabama Hospital IV Deaths

     BREAKING NEWS: Nine patients in Birmingham hospitals die from toxic IV nutritional suplements....other patienst infected. Story coming up on CBS 8 News at 5:00 and later updates in Montgomery.
     No mention of the incident on the website of the comapny that allegedly distributed the product, but they do prominently display a customer guarantee:

The most important asset we have is our reputation. Our patients and those we serve are important to us.
Customer Satisfaction is guaranteed.
Customer Service is our number one priority. We strive to help you outsource your products and once you do we strive to exceed your expectations of service.

[UPDATE: Where are the owners of the company? Hospitals are suing, but unable to find anyone to serve the papers on....]

Where NOT to work.

     Certain industries are headed for the job creation morgue, claims a story in the Wall Street Journal today.
     They quote IBIS, a research group as determining the top (or bottom) ten:


Wired Telecommunications Carriers

Mills

Newspaper Publishing
Apparel Manufacturing
DVD, Game & Video Rental
Manufactured Home Dealers
Video Postproduction Services
Record Stores
Photofinishing
Formal Wear & Costume Rental
SOURCE: IBISWORLD
 
     NO shock about newspaper publishing, textile mills and record stores (Daddy, what are records?).....in fact all of them are fairly predictable in a world of cell phones and digital everything.
     The Mills and apparel companies that provided generations of  Alabamians with careers are long gone. And developing film? Bye Bye.
 

     But one industry that employes a lot of Alabamians is also on the list, and it may be a surprise: "Manufactured Homes"..i.e. Mobile Homes. According to the Alabama Manufactured Home Association, 24% of new home sales in Alabama are actually mobile homes.
         There are thirteen manufactured home building companies in the state churning out almost 7,500 homes last year. Another dozen or so import homes into Alabama. You might think they would coordinate all of this and keep the homegrown homes here. But The Alabama Manufactured Homes Association says about three-quarters of the homes made in Alabama are exported out of the state...perhaps answering Andy Rooney's long-ago question: if they're mobile, why don't they GO somewhere?"
     There actually is a regulatory agency for mobile homes in the state. The Alabama Manufactured Housing Commission here in Montgomery. Note from their website picture that their headquarters building is not a mobile home.

MMMM # 139 -- End (of free NY) Times... and Yemen PR (NOT).

     Overnight, as we slept, the long anticipated pay wall went up around The New York Times website.
     Readers of this blog know I have been a regular reader of the Times. I've linked to stories produced by The Times staff several tiems a week for years.
     Beginning today, we can read 20 articles a week for free. After that, there is a charge per article. Or you can pay a flat monthy fee for electronic access on multiple platforms...PC, tablets or smart (or maybe even just brighter-than-average) phones. $20.00.
     PC Magazine reports that readers of this and other blogs who click through to a Times story will not have that count against their 20 free stories a month. Of course that doesn't help me with my monthly limit!

     It can't be completely a coincidence that the last column by Bob Herbert appeared in yesterday's paper.

     And ditto for Frank Rich's departure two weeks ago.

    The first time The Times tried to require payment from readers, there was major revolt by the columnists, who were the main focus of the fees charged for N.Y. Times Select. And now, like then, there apparently was a major internal battle between proponents of charging and those who wanted to protect the biggest online news audience in the world...almost fifty million visitors a month.

     There is no doubt those numbers will plummet starting this week.

      I agree the Times and other providers of original online content deserve to be compensated for their work, but $240 a year is not an insignificant fee, especially during The Great Depression. Have they not been reading their own economic stories?

     I haven't decided about paying yet. There are many fine newspapers online not charging, and as columnists jump ship, the ability to visit the Times online becomes less valuable, not more.
     And there's this: when the content was free, I felt an obligation to watch the annimated ads for The Economist etc etc before I was allowed to view my story. Now I'll just click the "skip this ad" option immediately.
     Will that option remain with a pay wall?


                                                                       ###

     Yemen, where snipers fired into a crowd of demonstrators last week, killing a reporter and others, is also at the front of the line of Middle-Eastern Governments who are abusing the media during the unrest.

     The country's official news agency put out a warning to journalists:

Yemen urges foreign media maximum accuracy while covering Yemen


[22/March/2011]
     SANA'A, March 22 (Saba) – Yemen on Tuesday urged foreign media to exercise maximum accuracy as to what they report and to be professional while covering the situation in Yemen.
     A source at the Information Ministry also stressed the importance of reporting the facts as they are and to avoid distorting them.
     The source told Saba:" the ministry will regrettably withdraw the license of any correspondent for foreign outlets found abusing his profession".
     Yemen is a democratic country, which is open to different opinions and committed to freedom of the press providing media never harms the national security and stability, the source said, warning media of incitement to violence and chaos or distorting the facts. 
                                

     It's bad enough to threaten to take away a journalists' license, but when snipers start firing into crowds of demonstrators...killing the reporters too...

    And late last week the find security forces in Libya made a fool of themselves by destroying  journalists cameras and roughing them up after they tried to report on a woman who charged she had been raped by the security force. The country's handlers also tried to convince the media the woman was drunk or insane.

    By Sunday morning, the Libyan government had reversed course, admitting the incident had been mishandled, and announced the arrest of five people.

[ALSO: The Montgomery Advertiser has launched a much-needed redesign of their web site. Looks good!]

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

Employment Headline

....but apparently not as headline grammar 
editors.

Esssssssssssssssssssscape.

     Last year it was Zoo Atlanta losssing track of a deadly snake.
     Now it's New York's Bronx Zoo.
     The folks up in NY say they are confident the snake is still inside the viper palace, but that's the same thing the Atlanta folks said and their escaped killer was found on the lawn of a family living nearby.
     Tim's snakeophobe motto is: presume they are all deadly and out to kill you until proven otherwise.

[Thanks to Chief snake correspondent and VP for pay wall development, Jay, for the tip.]

Civility

I'm not sure if we solved any of the incivility problem, but we certainly did talk about it this morning!

     The David Mathews Center for Civic Life and The Alabama Humanities Foundation invited me to sit on a panel discussing the lack of civility in politics and society, with the centerpiece being an essay written by a University of Alabama-Huntsville professor, Dr.Nick Jones (that's him at the podium in these pictures.)
      Most of the colleges in the state were invited to submit an essay on the topic, and a panel selected his as the best. The six finalists will be published on the Alabama Humanities Foundation website.
     Among those on the panel with me was former For The Record guest and longtime Jacksonville University History professor Harvey "Hardy" Jackson and veteran Birmingham broadcaster Shelley Stewart (the picture of the gentlemen NOT at the podium), who runs a foundation targeting the High School  drop-out rate. Shelly will turn 80 in about two years!
     One of the most interesting questions asked came not during the panel, but after it, by a fella who asked about a disparaging comment I had made about Rush Limbaugh...he pointed out it was not very civic. Hmmm. Good point, I thought. How do you criticise lack of civility without, yourself, being uncivil.

The End of The Future

     I'm sure you've heard the rumblings of the people who have sold or given away everything they own in the fervent belief that the world is ending in less than two months. May 21, 2011 is rapture time.
     I saw a caravan of them on I-85 on Thursday morning. There were five identical vehicles in all, headed towards...Auburn? Georgia? Eternity?
     Do a Google search under that date and you'll get 12-Million results.
     Do a Google search under another random date..."May 2, 2011", and you get... 16-Million. Proving exactly nothing I guess.

     Just thought you might want to consider maxing out your credit cards starting in Mid-April.

Elizabeth Taylor

     Chief Associate Editor in Chief Jay coments that the fast funeral for Elizabeth Taylor means the hate-folks at the Westboro Baptist Church won't have the pleasure of defaming her funeral.
     Jay mentions that she "converted to Judism several husbands ago"...thus the quick burial.
     R.I.P. to a legend.

Music among the shelves

     My friend and former APT Co-worker Bob Corley will be performing this evening at New South Books. With him will be Mark Fair, who's sign company restored the old clock on Dexter Avenue, and who has been playing the guitar since he was 9.
     In addition to the music and refreshments, you'll be able to pick up a copy of one of New South's offerings...like the revised Huckleberry Finn profiled on 60 Minutes on Sunday!
     The event is from 5:30 - 7:30 this Thursday evening.

Under Siege

“Muslims are protected more in this country than Christians...the president has made many statements but he doesn’t back them up. We have to do more to protect the Christians in the Muslim world. Their lives are  in  Read the entire story here.

                                                         Franklin Graham

Education Funding

     School funding in Alabama has always been less than needed....now some parents in two rural North Alabama Counties have filed suit trying to force the state to provide adequate funding.
     One of the first witnesses, for the parents, was Auburn History Professor Wayne Flynt, who recalled the state's experience at the start of WWI:

...when a large number of would-be soldiers from Alabama were rejected because they were illiterate.

     Th Huntsville Times has a complete story online here.

Which Copier is on First?

     Reading the transcript of a Cleveland city employee being questioned by a lawyer about a Photocopy machine reminded me of the classic "Who's On First" comedy routine with Abbot and Costello.

MMMM # 138 --- The MOST, BEST, BIGGEST, HAPPIEST, DEPRESSING places

     We seem to have something of a fetish for lists that rank cities and states. That's why magazines like Men's Health run frequent articles listing the best and smallest, and most this and that places in the country. When you list lots of cities and states, you are sure to pull in readers (and maybe even subscribers!) who live there, and who will then talk about the list and promote your agazine.

   One Men's Health study I came across today ranks Birmingham as 50th most connected (FaceBook pages, twitter accounts etc) city in the U.S. Who knew? It was the only Alabama city on the list of top 100.

     Previously, Men's Health had ranked Birmingham 8th most religious city in the country (Montgomery ranked 12th), and Birmingham was also ranked 42nd for getting drunk, and 10th for obesity.

     The magazine also ranked Birmingham as 8th in making charitable contributions...Montgomery ranked 34th on that list.
     Birmingham is also the 3rd mostly commonly mentioned city on this blog, and the 5th when it comes to pictures of the city being posted. No... those last two rankings are made up. And in a sense, so are the others.
     The magazine writers depend on lists and stats from the Census Bureau and other sources and then take a leap of faith that one city is more religious than another because it has more churches and donors.

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

60-Minutes

     Montgomery publisher Randall Williams of New South Books will be on 60-Minutes tonight, discussing the edited Huck Finn his company published last year.

[UPDATE: You can watch the video online here.]

Friendlier Crowd

     Can you blame President Obama for visiting Brazil? Sure, he has legitimate business to conduct there, just as he has in virtually every country in the world, but when The Washington Post uses the word "swoon" in a headline to describe his welcome, and quotes people like one woman...

"He is a president the whole world likes, a black president,” she said. “I would give him a hug. I would tell him he is a good president.”

     Back home he's under constant, unrelenting criticism from the GOP and birthers and the tea party and the left of his own party....heck, he should consider establishing a (Really) Southern White House in Rio!

Mixed

     The number of mixed marriages in The South is increasing, reports the NY Times in an article that focuses on Mississippi.
     I suspect the experiences of the couples profiled in the article, like being asked it they are together at a restaurant, even if they are arm-in-arm, are just as common in Alabama and the rest of the Old South.

Opp

Yea, it's that time of year. The Opp rattlesnake rodeo.
Watch a video report from CBS-8 Here.
I'm staying home, being a confirmed snakophobe.

More Municipal Auditorium Photos

     Although the auditorium is being renovated, it is not being restored.

     The cost of the plaster work seen in the top photo is one of the reasons. Just too expensive right now. But the work is being done with future potential restoration in mind.

     Hank Williams funeral was held in the space. You can see the words City Auditorium carved above the old (and future) main entrance.

     The balcony area shown above will not be used when the hall reopens late in the year, but the original seats, stored all these years in the sub-basement of City Hall, are being restored for use.
     Least I sound a touch too warm and fuzzy about the hall, let's remember that when it was built, and for decades afterwards, the auditorium was at the very least segregated---I have yet to find documentation of the policy, but I do know that on January 12, 1956, 1,200 members of The White Citizen's Council held a rally against the bus boycott in the auditorium. Police Commissioner Clyde Sellers played a very active role in that rally, writes Taylor Branch in Parting The Waters. And the May, 1960 issue of Ebony Magazine includes an ad by a Human Rights group that says the auditorium was segregated.

The Other Bus Line

The NY Times writes this morning about the man who ran a black bus company in segregated Birmingham.

Immigration Legislation in Alabama

     Alabama Legislators will be back on the job Monday after Spring Break (taken after less than two weeks in session), and one of the bills they'll be considering is an Arizona-styled anti-immigration law. The bill is headed for debate in the House after approval by a committee.
     Legislators may want to consider the Arizona experience, where the anti-immigration backlash has resulted in a significant downturn in tourism, also a significant part of the Alabama economy.
     The impact was so negative in Arizona that five bills intended to toughen the already tough anti-immigration law have been rejected after pressure by the business community.

     Alabama's legislation was sponsored by Micky Hammon (R-Decatur) with 23 co-sponsors. It allows police to demand proof of citizenship from someone stopped for another crime, if  "'a reasonable suspicion exists that person is an unauthorized alien.''
     In The Montgomery Advertiser earlier this month, Sebastian Kitchen quotes a legal advocacy group as saying the legislation would result in a $17 Million decrease in tourism in the state. That just happens to be the amount of money BP provided to Alabama recently in a grant to attract tourists. A wash!

Translation Tremors

"Man shall not live on bread alone."

                                        OR

"People do not live on bread alone."

That's one example of a newly translated version of the bible.....the old gender neutral issue is causing a stir. Here's an interesting article about it in the Atlanta-Journal today.

DO DON'T Know Much About History (Standards).

     Good news about education in Alabama is hard to find, what with the continued cuts in education funding. But a study by researchers at Fordham University ranked Alabama second in the nation--an A-minus-- when it comes to state standards for teaching History. Mississippi got an F. Georgia a B.
     Alabama's grade is especially good when you see how poorly the rest of the country did:

"A majority of states’ standards are mediocre-to-awful. The average grade across all states is barely a D. In twenty-eight jurisdictions — a majority of states — the history standards earn Ds or below. Eighteen earn Fs."

     The grade was reported first by the A-Plus education organization.
     I went searching in Google News for some History Test results to see how well the state stacks up when it comes to actually knowing history, but no matter what series of words I used---Alabama history exam scores---etc etc, the vast majority of stories that turned up were sports stories. Go figure.

Ireland

     The land of my Grandmothers and a Grandfather is celebrated each year on St. Pat's Day, a reminder to the world of all things Irish.
     I hope those who are Irish, if only for the day, enjoyed the celebration. I hear the weather bright and sunny for the NY St. Pat's Day parade, and that's a blessin'

     That's Andrew and Sarah and one of their children...the photo is not labeled and we guess it may be one of the three children they lost to a mysterious illness in 1921.

     He was an Irish cop in New York, she was the Mother who gave birth to ten children, including my Dad.

     After Andrew died in 1923, Sarah and the children went back to her homeland, but only for a visit.

     These are especially tough times for Ireland. So many took advantage of the great economy in the mid to late 2000's, that they fell all the harder. from The Great Recession.

     Though I hold dual-citizenship with Ireland because of my ancestry, and even carry an Irish passport, I've yet to visit. Maybe this year?

[NASA has provided a gorgeous photo of Erie from space...no wonder she's called The Emerald Isle!]

The Times

     I'm writing to the editor of The New York Times offering him a special discount on the frequent links I make to his paper.
     I'm going to let the Times have the first five links free per month, and then charge them a sliding scale for the rest.
     The decision is light of today's announcement that access to the Times online (The "Digital Times" as they call it) will start costing money at the end of the month. 20 stories free...then start paying. I've scaled down my own rate structure because,, well just because.

     And by the way, the above link to the Times is 100% free as part of my introductory offer.

Japan NONcommunication

     I'm happy to see a report in this morning's NY Times about the terrible job Japanese officials have done in clearly communicating with the media and the public about the nuclear disaster unfolding there.
     Isn't it during that most grave of emergencies that a company should ignore public relations and emphasize public communications?

     As I've suggested, I hope the misleading comments by that country's leadership will be part of the eventually international investigation into...into what? "Chernobyl" became the name of that event. So did "Three Mile Island".
     Somehow Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station doesn't roll off the tongue. Perhaps just "Fukushima" because it sounds a bit like Hiroshima?

M(T)MMM #137 -- The New Media Landscape

     Here's the way a Yahoo! Sports Editor (Yahoo? They have Sports Editors? Yahoo! is producing enough journalism to need editors?) explains why he deleted a quote by an NFL player, comparing the league to slavery:

"I want to give him the opportunity to provide context as opposed to just running with it...I just feel like he should have been advised a little differently."

    Read the entire story on CBS (They DO have editors) here.
      So now the "editors" are there to protect the people being interviewed? Why not set up a PR firm on the side and offer questions in advance and let the players' reps select which parts of stories they like before they are broadcast or posted or printed?
      And a second thought: When in the history of the institution of slavery has a slave been paid enormous amounts of money...multiple-millions...to play a game?

[The Monday Morning (and sometimes Tuesday afternoon) Media Memo is a regular feature of this blog.]

Fire!

     Turns out, Montgomery Firefighters are not especially good at starting fires.
They scheduled a training event this morning during which they burned an old shotgun house on Montgomery's West Side, near West Fairview Avenue.
     After smoking it up with smoldering hay bales for a while, and giving novice firefighters a chance to go into the smoke filled rooms, they sent in the fire-setter, who tired as best he could to get the place burning. It was a slow-go, finally using the fan normally used to expel smoke from a building, to instead blow oxygen in to get the fire going. Eventually it worked, but these guys are no Fahrenheit 451 types...they do a much better job (thank God!) putting them out. Some photos and a touch of video:

M(T)MMM # 136 - State of The News Media

     The respected journalism center--Poynter Institute--- in Florida, reports more people are now getting their news online than in printed newspapers....not that it's a shock...we all knew it was coming...but still a landmark event.
     TV remains #1.

[The Monday---and sometimes Tuesday--Media Memo is a regular feature of this blog.]

MMMM # 135 -- S*x Education

     The "sex-education" episode of Glee last week reminded me of a mini-documentary series I produced on WERC in Birmingham in the late 1970's called "Peoples' Journal".
     Each week we'd focus on a single subject, with one part airing each day. We covered topics varying from Blue Laws to the then-extreme sport of parachuting.    
     And one week we focused on the subject of sex education.
     The reaction was, well, amazing. More letters (remember those? You actually had to take pen and ink and paper and use the mail?) There were lots of phone calls too, more than anything we'd done before...much of it negative. So after day one we pulled the series and solicited comments from people. Should we resume it? Or not?
     We never aired the rest of the four parts. But there was a sex education of sorts for me in the experience. You are in the Deep South, son, and we don't talk about sex here. Not on the radio, anyway. No openly, Not in a serious way.
     And I'm not sure much has changed.

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

Japan & The Nuclear Future

     A week ago, there were 55 nuclear power plants in Japan, yet they provided only 30% or so of that country's energy needs.
     Now there are 53 nuclear power plants...subtracting the two where backup systems failed following the massive earthquake. The NY Times reports that the sea water being used to prevent a meltdown has likely destroyed the plants for the foreseeable future.

     When I went to the World's Fair in New York in 1964, I was amazed by the prediction that nuclear plants were going to produce power so cheap that it would not be worth the effort to collect money from customers. That was before the days when marketing experts made industries underpromise and overdeliver, I suppose.
     The Times report today suggests the events in Japan are far from over, though if you look back at the statements from Japanese officials yesterday, it appeared everything was under control and there was little danger. Then one of the reactor buildings exploded, and now who knows what's coming next.
     There are two new nuclear plants in Japan that are under construction and eleven more are in the planning stages.
     The World Nuclear Association's web page has a page that discusses how safe the plants are, and how little danger there is from earthquakes and tsunamis. I'd guess it's update time.

[UPDATE: What can I say but wow. That was one heck of an earthquake.]

[UPDATE: In an earlier post, I suggested support for nuclear power in the U.S. might drop following the continuing problems in Japen. Now support is dropping.]

Spring Forward!

Reminder: move those clocks AHEAD one hour before you go to sleep tonight!

Which Story?

     When I spotted the front page of The Montgomery Advertiser this morning, I wasn't sure at first which story the headline referred to...the Earthquake in Japan, or the Auburn players' arrests! Or both!

And you thought the Montgomery Mall had trouble?

     Sure, the Montgomery (Alabama) Mall is empty (photo below) and it would be a good thing if something were to happen to the buildings and land, but there's a mall in China---The South China Mall-- (left) that is twice the size of The Mall of America in Minnesota---the largest mall in the U.S.---and the Chinese Mall is virtually empty.

POV aired a documentary about it that you can watch here.

     That may make Mayor Todd Strange feel a little less stressed over the Montgomery Mall situation, which he's spent a lot of time trying to solve, to no avail.

     I once asked the late Jim Wilson, developer of that Mall and The Galleria in Birmingham, and many others, what he would do if someone handed him ownership of the mall again...and he said "I guess tear it down..what else can you do?"

     The Chinese Mall situation may also make Americans feel a bit less stressed. China may own much of our debt (via bonds), but they are no immune to the Great Recession.

The Japan Syndrome

     Today's explosion at the Japanese Nuclear Power Plant comes just over a year after President Obama agreed to have the U.S. government be co-signers of loans for two new nuclear plants in Georgia.

     The memory of Three Mile Island in 1979 has faded, and in any case, the backup systems there did work and prevented a meltdown of the core. It's unclear this Saturday Morning what has happened in Japan, but it is obviously worse than TMI, and maybe worse than Chernobyl.

    
     One thing is clear, 32 years after the TMI accident and the preceding China Syndrome movie, a huge roadblock has been placed in front of any company wanting to build new nuclear plants in America. It will be difficult for those firms to paint Japan as some jack leg third-world country that just didn't take the proper precautions to prevent accidents.
     Good or bad, nuclear power just took a big hit, and that probably means more coal-fired plants in our future.

[UPDATE: Experts say no repeat of Chernobyl in Japan.]