A Michele Bachmann-Alabama link

In the latest Rolling Stone, author Matt Taibbi makes an Alabama connection to Republican/Tea Party Presidential Candidate Michele Bachmann. He writes about a small law school where she studied...

Regent was unabashed in its desire that its graduates enter government and become "change agents" who would help bring the law more in line with "eternal principles of justice," i.e., biblical morality. To that end, Bachmann was mentored by a crackpot Christian extremist professor named John Eidsmoe, a frequent contributor to John Birch Society publications who once opined that he could imagine Jesus carrying an M16 and who spent considerable space in one of his books musing about the feasibility of criminalizing blasphemy.

                       Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone on Michele Bachmann's legal education.

John Eidsmoe live in Pike Road, just outside Montgomery and has been involved in any number of Alabama institutions, like being employed at one point by The Alabama Supreme Court during the days of Roy Moore.
He attended Maxwell Air War College, and was a guest at least twice that I recall on "For The Record" back in the day. He used to teach at the law school at Faulkner University (where George W. Bush will speak for a fundraiser later in the year. Tickets are $200). He currently on the staff of a primarily online unaccredited law school called Oak Brook College.

Too Strange for Words

     If someone wrote this scenario as a novel, the editors would say no way! No one will ever believe it!
    On the same day former Governor Riley falls off a motorcycle and breaks bones in Alaska, former Chief Justice Roy Moore falls off a horse and suffers similar injuries here in Alabama.
    Throw in Sue Bell Cobb announcing today that she's leaving her job as Supreme Court Chief Justice early and I just have to wonder if someone pulling some weird strings.
     Should Governor Bentley appoint Moore to his old job, broken bones and all?
     What's Drayton Nabers up to these days?

The Other Show Has Fallen

     Alabama Public Television  is closing it's Montgomery location, putting more than a dozen people out of a job, and ending one of the few local shows produced by the network, Capitol Journal.

     Sorry to hear about those former co-workers!

     It's been almost two and a half years since my own position and "For The Record" were eliminated.

MMMM # 151* Media Elitism and The Constible On Patrol

     What Alabama TV station had a fully marked vehicle stopped and given a ticket for windows tinted too darkly?

     It IS against the law...in fact it was 15 years ago that the legislature passed the law, so perhaps the officer was giving a 15th anniversary ticket?

     I wonder how many tickets of that nature have been given out in those fifteen years? And how many to brightly marked NEWS VEHICLES?

    I believe reporters should be treated exactly the same as everyone else...which is why I don't like seeing news vehicles parked illegally at the scene of routine news stories like The Alabama Statehouse. They never are ticketed.

     But windows tinted too dark? It is close to the end of the month, so perhaps the good officer was low on his quota? Or maybe he just didn't like a story that station had reported.

[PLUS: a Washington Post column calls out the media on it's failure to report the "rigging" of the 2012 elections by states (including Alabama)  that have passed laws that benefit the GOP.

"...the rank partisanship of these measures is discouraging the media from reporting plainly on what’s going on. Voter suppression so clearly benefits the Republicans that the media typically report this through a partisan lens, knowing that accounts making clear whom these laws disenfranchise would be labeled as biased by the right. But the media should not fear telling the truth or standing up for the rights of the poor or the young.")

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

[*this would have been MMMM #150, but I used that number for a special MMMM about the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War....just in case anyone is keeping track. And by the way, my 2000th post on this blog was yesterday. ]

Post #2000 on This Blog

     I posted the first item on this blog on 11/23/2007....and this post is #2000.
     I didn't quite know what I was going to do with the blog when I started...the first posts were just some photos.
     The look of it has evolved...the posts tend to be shorter with more pictures (like almost all published and online entities. Look at TIME magazine these days!)
     Several years ago I added the weekly Monday Morning Media Memo...the 150th MMMM will post tomorrow morning, the story of the police stopping an Alabama TV station news vehicle.
    The biggest percentage of visitors come from Alabama, of course, and the U.S.(all 50 States and two U.S.territories), but 113+ countries are represented...even two visits from the Aland Islands, which I had to look up (near Finland).

Thank you for visiting...be it once for a few seconds or multiple times for longer periods!

Tim

Honoring the Sick and the Dead and the Marrying.

     Was it just in the movies that the Allies placed huge Red Crosses on the tops of hospitals and on ambulances so the Nazis and Japanese could avoid bombing them?
     I got thinking about it when I read this morning's story about a hospital in Afghanistan being the target of a car bomb, killing 60 people.
     Theses are the same people who seem to favor bombing their own fellow countrymen and women at weddings and funerals too.
     Maybe we should take the gloves off and start intentionally bombing sites in villages that harbor the Taliban? Weddings, funerals, Sunday brunch? The friend of my enemy is my enemy...you're either with us or against us?
    Sigh. I Guess we don't want to become them, do we.

Peter Falk obit

     The actor Peter Falk has died, one of the well known people I've had the pleasure of interviewing over the years. He was promoting his paintings...yes, he was an artist that way too...and he was as comfortable to talk with as his trademark rumpled raincoat.
     I was a fan of Columbo, of course, one of the reasons I booked the interview. I always thought he had found the role he was born to play. He made the detective as real as any character can be, an underdog who wasn't really an underdog...he always got the bad guy or girl in the end.
     I don't think I did an especially artfull interview, and I wish I had ended it by saying good by and then adding.. "Uh, one more thing, Mr. Falk...!"

"The Killing"

Non-News

AP Story:

MOBILE, Alabama -- Land-based telephone service was cut to an area from west Florida to Mobile and north to Birmingham Thursday morning, an AT&T official said.

(I suspect that all five customers who still have landlines called to complain.)

 

Down The Drain

     Four Jefferson County Legislators have filed suit over a sewer rate hike ordered by the court-appointed receiver who trying to get the county out from under its massive sewer debt...a public works project that sent people to jail and almost bankrupt the entire county.

     I hope those legislators at least have an alternative plan to lay on the table to block bankruptcy, which the Wall Street Journal reported this week, would have an impact well beyond Jefferson County, seriously impacting the ability of all Alabama entities to sell bonds.

     Otherwise what is it? A turf war as the county teeters on the edge? Now that's smart!

    

Fat....and a very longlasting clock

It has been that kind of week.
I've been busy on a lot of fronts, and thus neglected my  posts here.
Let me make up for it a bit with a double post on two stories that have little to do with one another except they caught my attention.

#1: It's those potato chips that are making you fat. At least now we know what to blame, right?

#2: The founder of Amazon.com is building a clock that he wants to last for 10,000 years. And it it not just a lark by a man with more money than sense. Go to his website to read about the project, which is designed to make us all think long term. Really long term. Here's a quote from the man with the money:

 “Over the lifetime of this clock, the United States won’t exist. Whole civilizations will rise and fall. New systems of government will be invented. You can’t imagine the world — no one can — that we’re trying to get this clock to pass through.”

                                            Jeff Bezos, AMAZON founder

Wow.

Strange Lives

     While researching Saturday's small plane crash in Guntersville that left two adults and a child dead, I came across another plane crash story. And it has one of those truth is stranger than fiction aspects that make it a must read.

Tiny Babies

     We all see the world through the lenses of our own lives, and so the story of sextuplets being born yesterday in Dallas County, Alabama, with birth weights as low as 1.5lbs reminded me of my own 4.4lbs arrival.

     That was considered a high risk birth back then, and I spend a month in an incubator before starting my exploration of the Universe outside.

     But the new kids on the block in Dallas County are said to be healthy and almost ready to start on their own journey. There is still an element of risk for both the babies and the new Mom, but it's amazing to me how much less dangerous just being born is these days.

He Shoulda Read Asop

Here's the story Aesop wrote : One winter a Farmer found a Snake stiff and frozen with cold. He had compassion on it, and taking it up, placed it in his bosom. The Snake was quickly revived by the warmth, and resuming its natural instincts, bit its benefactor, inflicting on him a mortal wound. "Oh," cried the Farmer with his last breath, "I am rightly served for pitying a scoundrel."
The greatest kindness will not bind the ungrateful.


And here's what just happened in New Jersey to a young man who perhaps had never read Aesop, courtesy the Asbury Park Press, a former employer of mine back in the day.

[And thanks to finder-of-truths online, Jay, for finding the N.J. story!]

Deep South Misery

     This picture was from last Monday. Yesterday we actually had some rain in Montgomery, and the high temperature was below 95 for the first time in weeks! 
     And remember, Summer begins on Monday!

[Update: today was power bill delivery day. Enough said.]

South Korean troops fire rifles  at commercial jetliner.

CSS Alabama Flag = $180,000

     A flag said to have been on the CSS Alabama when it went down in battle off the coast of France sold at auction in New York today for $180,000
     While that's a lot of money, it was below the anticipated  $200,000 - $400,000 Sothby's expected.
     The flag, like many other Civil War relics, was handed down through the years by family members, and there's no irrefutable proof that if flew on the ship.

     The flag was given to the family after the ship sank as a result of a battle with the USS Kearsarge. This Sunday is the anniversary of that battle in 1864, portrayed in Harper's Magazine below. The photograph below the sketch is one of the few actual photos of the ship itself. There are no known quality photos showing the full ship.

HOME grown peaches.

     I understand that all of our fresh fruits and vegetables are not going to be locally grown, but with Alabama Peach Country all around us, why advertise an out-of-state origin?

   This sign was in a Montgomery grocery. Do you think they have signs reading "Alabama Peaches" over in Atlanta?

11/6/12

     Another item to consider in judging how important the Presidential Election of 11/6/12 will be.
     If this juvenile case had gone before a Supreme Court in which a GOP President had been able to fill one or two seats on the court, the results would likely be the opposite. If that appeals to you, work for the election of whoever the GOP Nominee is next year. If not, for the Demo Nominee. Or perhaps an independent?

Sad Dog Story

     A career Nation Weather Service forecaster who is retired and working for a TV station in Birmingham has lived through a horrible story involving his dog.
     During my own time on-air in Birmingham, J.B. Elliot was always willing to help us tell the weather story.
     Before you read it, be warned that his sad dog story ends with his pet, his companion Molly, being killed by another dog.
     J.B. was injured himself in the i ncident and is home recuperating. I wish him well, and send waves of sympathy for the loss of his pup.

Did you hear a click? NO!!!!!

A couple tires to take a still photo on his 84th Birthday to send to friends, but they take video instead... with Candid Camera-like results. Cute!

Folk Hero Dead...

     Kathryn Tucker Windham has died, headed to join Jeffrey, the ghost in the premier book that bore their names.
     She died in Selma yesterday, surrounded by freinds, including perhaps, Jeffrey.
     She was 93.

MMMM # 149 -- The NEW News on CBS.

     Of course I have some bias on this MMMM topic, working now for a CBS affiliate, and having worked for another in Birmingham. But I have to say CBS hit it out of the park with a solid but unsensational first week of news anchored by Scott Pelley.
     And I say unsensational in a complimentary way.
     After night number one, the Washington Post's critic wrote about an immediate and significant difference: how they all handled Weiner's admission of guilt and cover up.
     It's a distance race, of course, not a sprint, but I would say Pelley is off to a great start, treating the evening news with a seriousness and lack of smarmyness and fake sincerity that seems so common elsewhere.
    You go Scott! Back to the future!

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

55 Years after the attack on Nat King Cole

     The Alabama born (1919) singer hosted a variety show on NBC starting on November 5, 1956 and lasting 64 weeks. Advertisers refused to support  The Nat King Cole Show, forcing NBC to subsidize it during most of the time it was on air. Cole commented that Madison Avenue "doesn't like the dark."
     Advertisers were afraid their products would be boycotted in the South if they sponsored the program.
     Now a play is opening in Washington at The Kennedy Center about the show and race relations in the late 50's in American. I Wish You Love originally opened in Minnesota.
     Even before he launched his TV show, in April of 1956, Cole was assaulted on stage during a performance in Birmingham, and refused to performed in the South again.
     Six members of the "White Citizen's Council" who were involved went to trial and some were convicted (in contrast to all of the bombers and others who were acquitted in the 50's and 60's in The South.
     Watch Cole sing a trademark "When I Fall in Love" here.
     The shows were released for digital viewing on iTunes and elsewhere in February.
     Wouldn't it be great if the new play opened in Montgomery where he was born, or even Birmingham, where he was beaten?
     By the way, you can read redacted FBI files here about the singer, showing the Bureau wanted to name him as a Communist.

Session's End

     With the state legislature now gone home till a potential special session on insurance in the fall, Democrats can only look through the ashes of any legislation they wanted...and of their efforts to block legislation they did not want.
     CBS-8 quoted Senator Hank Sanders as hoping he would make it through Friday. And fellow Democrat Roger Bedford told us the GOP had destroyed 20 years worth of laws protecting working people.
     One GOP bill that did not make it through would have defined "personhood" as starting with the fertilization of a human egg. It died on the last day.
     Other states joined Alabama is declaring a 20 weeks cap on abortions, blocked from going even further reported Reuters, by the Hyde Amendment.
     The Legislature's actions were a foregone conclusion as soon as the votes were counted after the November elections, and the GOP had won super-majorities in both houses.
     Republicans had been pushing this agenda for a decade or more, so when they finally had the power to make it happen, the pounced.
     Next November will be the first test of that new majority agenda. Will voters continue to support the cuts and changes made by the new majority, or will there be buyer's remorse?

Yes! You too can work for The New York Times!!!!

     Yes it's true!
    The New York Times wants YOU!
    Seems the 24,199 emails (250 lbs worth in printed form!) from Sarah Palin's truncated term in office are being released. So The Times wants volunteers to help  go through them and find the dirt.
     After burning and slashing their staff, they expect free labor from anybody who wants to take part...degree not required! Hell, brain not required! Journalism by mob.
     Memo to Times: go hire some of those thousands of unemployed journalists and pay them to do your leg work for you. Look in your classified section. Oh, wait...do you still have one?
     How far the old gray lady has fallen.

As Promised...Girl's State

     It turns out this is the 11th year I've been on the media panel at Girls' State!
     Some of the original girls have now earned their PhD's and become grandparents. OK, maybe just parents.



     That's Michael Briddell and Eileen Jones (both formely of WSFA) up top, with the two nominees for Governor below. We drove up and back together, so you can just imagine what that conversation was like. As far as I know, no cameras were on, so don't bother looking on YouTube.
     The girls keep rating the media panel highly enough for them to ask us back over and over. We talk about the media, and put the nominees through a grilling like a news conference. So would you sign that immigration bill or not, Madam Governor?

2011 Girl's State

     I'll be making what has become an annual trek to Troy University this morning to take part in a media panel for the 300 or so High School Seniors attending Girl's State.
     I think this is year 10 or so for the panel, with former WSFA anchor Michael Bridell and reporter Eileen Jones taking part this morning.
     Photos and a report later!

The Job Creation Legislative Session

     The 2011 Regular Legislative session comes to an end tomorrow.
    The last meeting day will include passage of the budgets, which will result in fewer jobs because of proration, and other legislation that will vastly increase jobs. Bills like the Immigration bill that Governor Bentley will sign in a public ceremony tomorrow morning, and the abortion legislation.
     The new hires will be the lawyers needed to defend the state against the slew of lawsuits that will be filed against 'em.
    

Red Light cameras, Chapter 7

      Los Angeles has become the latest city to change its mind about the cameras that take photos of cars that fail to stop at red lights. The tickets are then mailed to the car's owner.
     Montogmery has had them for over a year.
     And now Montgomery has been given permission from the State Legislature to add speed cameras.

    

Bingo Bribery Trial Morals

     In reading a Birmingham News story about the jury selection, I was interested in the prosecutors telling potential jurors the trial is not about whether gambling is "good or bad"....it got me thinking if they are worried about jury nullification?
     Almost all of those in one panel questioned today said they had gambled. The same majority said they read their Bible every day.
     Will that influence their decision if they are chosen?
     The defense is sure to argue that what happened is no different from a voter or special interest group giving a campaign contribution to a candidate (incumbent or not) because they want him or her to support their interests...in this case electronic bingo.
     Lots of people wondering aloud if there will be many conviction or all convictions?
  
Watch CBS 8's Krista Littlefields's coverage here.

MMMM # 147 -- Media Futures

     A long-awaited FCC report on the future of the media concludes that TV news is more important than ever. According to a story in Broadcasting & Cable, the report will come out on Thursday during a regular public FCC meeting. The actual name of the report is "The Technology and Information Needs of Communities". Much clearer than the working title of "The Future of Media", no? 

-----------

  Speaking of broadcasting and cable, I read a Birmingham News column last month in which TV critic Dave Sharp was listing Summer Cable TV premiers. He commented that...

"...the cable networks who, more and more, are giving those big boy networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, and The CW) a major run for their money in the storytelling department."

  Come on Dave...Breaking Bad manages to attract 3 Million viewers on its best night...CBS's Two and a Half Men (without Sheen)  attracts more than 10 Million viewers. Storytelling without an audience is, what? A non-profit venture?

     And besides, with NBC buying Comcast (or was it the other way around?), consolidation will likely mean cable and broadcasters become the same, competing on a market by market basis for subscribers.
     At some point, probably many years for now, the whole idea of maintaining expensive transmitters and towers will end. It will be all cable and all Internet distribution. The virtual end of free TV. Another victory for the "subscription economy".
     In the meantime, the cable shows fight for whatever time the audience will be willing to invest watching TV during the busy Summer days---DVD/downloads notwithstanding,

[UPDATE: Speaking of over-the-air TV....a new report out suggests MORE Americans are using it.

[ALSO: The Rep. Weiner-Tweet story has an interesting media angle...did The N.Y. Post get an interview by posing as a non-journalist? Read the story here in the Washington Post.

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

The Hot Spring of 2011

     With no major cooling in sight, Montgomery may set a number of heat records this year, including consecutive scorching days. 

    
      In 2010 there were 56 consecutive days with highs above 90, beating the previous 1986 record of 52 days.
     Today will be the 9th day in a row of 90+ temps, and the highs for the next ten days are all in the mid to upper 90's. The start of a new record?
     Summer starts two weeks from tomorrow--- on June 20 at 6:09pm.
   
[The photo was taken on 7/26 of 2010.]

A Special Effects Army

     Now I understand why the folks at AIDT (Alabama Industrial Development Training) are so interested in training Alabamians to work in the movie business, especially if there's a computer component to it.
     The new flick Priest tells the story of a future where vampires fight with humans and the humans are protected by a band of priests who are trained as vampire killers.
     Blood? Oceans of it, and it is sure to be condemned by the Catholic church, which is presented in a not very positive way. ("There are no vampires! Listen to the Church!")
     The AIDT connection? There are 343 people credited with the special effects. 343! Watch the trailer and you'll see why.
     Trivia: The actor who plays the vampire star "Bill" in TV's True Blood plays a vampire victim in the movie.
     And the movie is made for sequels, so some job security for that army of special effects people.

Bank Forclosure/Forclosure Bank

Homeowner forecloses on Bank.


It happened in Florida.
Watch the report.
What more can I say?

Insurance and risk.

      Forget all of the "good hands" and "good neighbor" and "there with you" stuff....Insurance is a by-the-books, cold, calculating legal gambling enterprise. Like Wall Street.
      When they bet and lose, they pay off what they have to and get out of Dodge (or Tuscaloosa).

     ALFA is cancelling insurance policies in Alabama because of the killer tornado outbreak, reports the Press-Register today. That's in addition to the earlier decision to insure only homes no "older" than ten years.

Insurance companies would prefer to insure only brand new one-story underground concrete houses with sprinkler systems, located on a gentle plain away from any rivers, in an area with no history of being touched by earthquakes or strong winds, much less tornadoes, owned---not rented--- by perfectly healthy white heterosexual farmer-like married couples (who, heaven forbid don't own any actual farm implements, at least none bigger than serving spoons) with no kids and no pets larger than a goldfish.

     Insurers are betting that you won't have a fire or a flood or a tornado in your backyard (or your ship won't catch on fire!) That's how they make their money, and that's the reason they exist. When they do lose, they sometimes pick up their marbles and leave.

     Just remember...buying an insurance policy is a business transaction, nothing more. That may be shortsighted in the big-picture way, since the overall good of the community will eventually help or hurt all companies doing business there, but that's the way it works. 

     Nothing wrong with that, but it's probably not the pitch you'll hear from an insurance agent.  

Just a reminder: hydrate!

...and Summer is still two weeks away!

Supreme Court Building Photographic Hat Trick

In this photo you can see all three places where the Alabama Supreme Court has been housed since the Capitol moved to Montgomery in 1846.


A) Barely visible through the trees...the Alabama Capitol Building, where you can see the old Supreme Court Chambers on tours. The Capitol building burned down in 1847 and was rebuilt on the same foundation in 1851.


B) During the Great Depression, a Scottish Rite Lodge building on Dexter Avenue fell into default and was seized by the state. The Supreme Court moved into the building where it would literally hold court for almost a half Century. The old building has been completely encased by the new RSA Judicial Office Building, which should open in 2012. The Supreme Court Chamber is being restored as a meeting room. You can see the old building through the windows of the new structure. The picture below was taken during construction. It clearly shows the old building in the new.
In March of 2007, before the RSA plan was announced, I produced a piece for APT about the  history of that old building, and you can watch that segment online here.

C) The current Judicial Building, where all of the Appeals Courts of Alabama reside. A majestic building for sure, but there were serious water leak problems almost from the start. The statute of limitations on filing suit against the designers and builders expired in the early 2000's, yet the management of the courts took no action.
As a result, the state has had to spend millions to fix the problem. Worse yet, taxpayers will have to do the same repair work over and over again, like re-roofing your home. Ouch. The building was designed by Bargainer, Davis, Sims Architects of Montgomery, and Gresham, Smith and Partners of Birmingham at a cost of almost $35 Million Dollars in the late 90's.

Tree Felony

Here's a story to chill the heart of small government advocates everywhere...it takes place in Charlotte, North Carolina, not Alabama, so don't worry about the tree cops showing up at your door just yet. But a chruch is being fined for a miserable pruning job on trees on their property.

The story does have a point. Horticulturalists here in the South refer to this kind of crape myrtle pruning as Crape Murder. Ugly for sure. But criminal? Maybe Bad Taste in the 1st degree.

Mike Pender at Classic Gardening and Landscaping in Birmingham---old radio sponsors of mine back in the day---have a page about the practice, though I'm pretty sure Mike would argue with the church being fined on a number of levels. (-:

ZERO Tolerance

     That's apparently what some South Alabama Republicans have for party members who stray, even those who were republicans as far back as 1952!
     George Talbot reports in the Press-Register that one such person will likely be thrown out of the party for supporting a Constitution Party candidates who almost beat the GOP candidate in the race for House District 105.
     I think strict zero tolerance policies = lazy justice.
     Everything is not always equal. Circumstances do change.
     It's certainly easier...someone performs action "A:", they received punishment "C".
     But life isn't a Chinese Restaurant menu. We ought to allow wisdom to play a part in decisions about punishment and the enforcement of rules. When we don't, we end up with the little girl being punished because an aspirin is found in her coat pocket, or the boy with a nail being sent to detention for violating the zero tolerance policy toward weapons.
     Or the South Alabama gentlemen who was a Republican before there was even a listing for that party in Alabama phone books being kicked out for supporting what he found to be "the better candidate".

[I originally wrote this item a few weeks ago, but a Washington Post story about "zero tolerance" this morning reminded me to finish it up and post it.]