Banks Robbery

     If banks didn't already have enough trouble, now there's a significant backlash against the monthly debit card fees that Bank of America, Regions and others have started rolling out. $3, $5...whatever they are, customers are unhappy.
     Didn't taxpayers bail them out because they were too big to fail, even though it was their own foolish investments that got them into trouble in the first place?
    The dilemma is this: do you move your money to another bank, only to have that bank start charging the same fees? The banks know this, and that's why it's not all happening at once.  Maybe a Credit Union?
     And while I'm thinking of it, didn't debit cards actually save the banks money compared to the money they spent processing all of those paper checks?
          Two web sites of note: http://www.findabetterbank.com/ and http://www.moveyourmoneyproject.com/
           I saw them in a nytimes story online.
          And then there's the YouTube video showing the Wall Street protesters on the street, and the bankers on their terraces above, saluting the rabble with champagne.
         You would think all that money and education would allow them to hire some PR people with better sense.

Apologentsia*

     Lots of "I'm sorry" in the air these days, including one today from Alabama State Senator Scott Beason of Gardendale regarding his use of the term Aborigines during the Bingo Bribery trial. He was referring to the black patrons of the Greentrack bingo operation.

"My purpose today is to say that I am very sorry and I apologize to anyone whose feelings were hurt by my comment..." 

     And it's not just Beason. Why is it that folks apologizing can't let it go with a simple I am sorry..without the "to anyone whose feelings were hurt" part.
     Do they think there is even a scintilla of possibility that nobody was hurt after the eruption of anger after their comments?
     Beason's slur only came to light...ironically...because he was caught by the secret tape recorder he was wearing to help the Feds arrest Democrats. That prompted comments about what he might have said if he did not know he was being recorded.

[* I claim this as a new word, to describe the class of people who go public to apologize, at least half-heartedly, for their public statements.]

MMMM #165 -- Po' but Proud

     In a "Road Trip" item by Joe Klein last week about America "in Decline" on TIME magazine's website, he quoted Jim Phillips, the president of the Arkansas Dentists Association:

Phillips summoned another fallen empire: “We’re where England was. They got lazy…The thing is, we’ve got everything. We’re a consumer nation. Even the poorest people have air conditioning and television. There’s no reason for people to work so hard anymore, not like our parents.”

     I would guess he's one of the people who also think prisoners have AC and cable too.     
    Why do some Americans believe the American poor (in and out of prison) have it so good?
     Perhaps Dr. Phillips is a fan of The Heritage Foundation, which this summer released a report that made life as a poor American seem positively rosy:

     The typical poor American family was also able to obtain medical care when needed. By its own (Census) report, the typical family was not hungry and had sufficient funds during the past year to meet all essential needs.



     Poor families certainly struggle to make ends meet, but in most cases, they are struggling to pay for air conditioning and the cable TV bill as well as to put food on the table...

     And the Heritage Foundation blames, in part---drum role---the media. It cites four reports about poor families on the three broadcast networks:

To the extent that the networks suggest that the living standards of these families are representative of the living conditions of 35 million poor people across the nation, they are profoundly misleading viewers.

     Local reporters get to see poverty first hand, especially during The Great Recession, which has pushed more and more Americans---especially children---- into poverty for the first time. They go to Alabama's "Black Belt", where double digit unemployment is the norm. Is there AC there? For some, yes---window units mostly---some kind of AC is expected in the modern South. And yes, the poor do struggle to pay the resulting power bills. Would it be better if they just sweated more? 
     The Heritage report also points to the presence of VHS and DVD players as a sure sign that poverty is being inflated by the media. A basic DVD player can be bought for $17. Is owning one somehow an indication of wealth?
     Dr. Phillips draws a poverty line so low that ownership of anything above a plate and fork (or a toothbrush) and a tent seems to be equated to an "all's well" lifestyle.
     Perhaps an Arkansas poverty advocacy group should invite him on a tour sometime.

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

The Chamber of Commerce

     The Montgomery Advertiser reports today that the capitol city's chamber receives $2-Million a year in taxpayer funding from the city.
     Yet, the newspaper reports, there is no written agreement between the city and the chamber...no accountability at all. They can spend the money any way they like. Amazing.
     Mayor Todd Strange is quoted as saying he didn't know there was no contract, and will make sure that changes.

M(S)MMM # 164 -- Last Meals (NOT)

     Reports that Texas was ending those "special request" last meals for death row prisoners the night of their execution were all over the place last week.
     You could positively hear the cheers from death penalty supporters--- like those at the GOP debate who cheered Gov. Perry's brag about the number of prisoners his state has put to death.

     Yet it was on a BBC Radio report in the middle of the night on Alabama Public Radio that I heard an interview with the former inmate who actually prepared 200 of those special meals. Bunk, he says, in his book "Meals To Die For".
     He said no matter what the prisoner's asked for, he says they were given only what was available in the prison supplies. They would ask for a N.Y. Strip steak...and get a hamburger steak. Ask for wine and get grape juice.
     Why did I have to listen to a BBC report to hear that?

[The Monday (and sometimes Sunday, like today) Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this blog. The topic of tomorrow's regualar MMMM is reporting on the poor in America.]

Government Tracking

     So NASA says the pieces of space debris fell into the Pacific...somewhere...but we may never know exactly where.
     Huh? They can track your car on land, can tell you exactly where the Rovers on Mars are, but they don't know "exactly" where the debris hit? 

     All of this goes back to my disbelief that the best banks and other businesses can do is record blurry security cam pics of suspects. The images could be me...or anyone!
     And the fast food drive-through audio that sounds worse than this scratchy recording made in France in 1860, perhaps the first-ever recording of human speech.
     Doesn't it sound like "Would you like fries with that?"

Life Gets Treed

Maybe the most frustrating movie I've seen in many, many years. The Tree of Life.
One commentator on IMDB wrote: 

In August 2011, Sean Penn gave an interview to the French publication "Le Figaro" in which he was very critical of the movie and Terrence Malick's direction. Penn said "I didn't at all find on the screen the emotion of the script, which is the most magnificent one that I've ever read. A clearer and more conventional narrative would have helped the film without, in my opinion, lessening its beauty and its impact. Frankly, I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing there and what I was supposed to add in that context! What's more, Terry himself never managed to explain it to me clearly.

     If one of the stars couldn't understand what the movie was about...how are any of US to get anything out of it?
     Another reviewer wrote that the movie demands a lot of viewers..
     Sorry, but if I want to work that hard, I'll go to work.
     My 1 to 10 rating: 1
     And that's because the video is sometimes beautiful....at least up to 35 minutes into it when I gave up.

Former Alabama preacher charged.

     A former employee of Faulkner University in Montgomery (when it was called Alabama Christian College), 86 year old Clarence Caldwell Arquitt, Jr, has been charged with child abuse by authorities in Georgia...the second preacher with ties to this area to face sex related charges this week. The other was a Prattville minister charged with possessing child porn.
    WXIA TV reports the victim was his granddaughter when she was between the ages of 3 and 8.
     The Church of Christ minister is fighting extradition to Georgia, where the abuse allegedly happened, from North Carolina.
     Arquitt worked in four other states, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports authorities in those states are investigating to see if there was abuse in their jurisdictions.

(Almost) Mind Reading

     An amazing development that points to a future in which mind reading really is possible.
     A computer reconstructs videos that researchers watched by reading their brainwaves.
 The results are far from exact---and blurry, but close enough to be a touch scary.

Good Riddance to The Summer of 2011

     It was undeniably a miserably hot season...in fact, the second hottest on record for Alabama. That meant high bills for air-conditioning for those who have it, and shear misery for those who don't. Between that heat, the sinking economy, and the hate-fest in D.C....
     Today is the first full day of Fall in Alabama...bring on the cool!

NO CHILD

The President is going to allow the States to get around some parts of No Child Left Behind..a decision that probably will be applauded by educators in Alabama, but criticised by politicians in Alabama.

Court Decision

A federal Judge today upheld the Voting Rights Act, at least as it pertains to Shelby County, Alabama.

Opponents immediately said they will appeal.

What???

     I napped for a while this afternoon and woke up to this???? I know Press-Register reporter Jeff Amy, and I don't think he drinks this early in the day.

     His story says there is a $7-Billion Dollar toll road proposed from Tennessee to the Gulf Coast, including a huge inland port that....well, go ahead the read Jeff's story.
     Does it not remind you of the huge airport project pushed by (now in jail) former Birmingham City Councilman John Katapodis for North-East Alabama to handle the excess air traffic from the Atlanta Airport? I dubbed that one the Guy Hunt International Airport and pledged (these were my Talk Radio days) to lie down in on the main runway the day it opened.
     Oh yea, this proposal also includes an airport with four of the largest runways in Alabama, 18,000 feet each. And a 60,000 square foot Mall to boot (The Galleria in Birmingham has almost 2 million, so this is a baby by comparison).
     That map is one I created, by the way, not one from the company behind this project, so don't run out and start buying land yet.
     One of the officers in this supposed project was involved in founding the Psychic Friend's Network....which seemed to convince a lot of people to throw their money away, so who knows?
     Perhaps they can get Larry Langford to be General Manager, after he gets out of jail.

A Harvestless Fall

     North Alabama farmers have pleaded with some Alabama Legislators to change the immigration bill now, because millions of dollars in crops are going to be lost for a lack of field hands.
     Of course farmers made that case before the lawmakers approved the bill too.

     And that argument about the  jobs the illegals were taking from God-fearing legal resident of Alabama?
     Where are the workers who will work for less than minimum wage picking the crop?
    Perhaps the Legislative Leadership can pass a bill that requires anyone on unemployment to spend at least 20 hours a week in the fields helping to bring in the crop in return for the unemployment compensation they're getting. You know, kill two birds with one stone.
     Any takers?

MMMM # 163 -- The Associated Press

        My career has run along an Associated Press track.
     In Vietnam in 1970 we received a steady stream of news from around the world via an AP news "ticker" to produce AFVN TV and  radio newscasts.
     My first job after my military service was a position with "AP Radio" in Asbury Park, NJ. It provided audio for stations to use in their newscasts in New Jersey New York and Pennsylvania.     
     When I moved to Alabama, I quickly became active in the state AP Broadcaster's Association (AAPBA), serving as President at one point.
     AP has been buffeted by the same economic winds that have hit the rest of the media. Some clients, especially broadcasters, have eliminated AP service in the interest of saving money. Tough choice, since there's really no alternative in the state.

   This past week AP held an annual meeting in Denver, to tell editors the status of AP News. Like everybody else, they've cut staff. And like other industries, they are expecting more from the remaining staff:

AP leaders told the members of the Associated Press Media Editors that the news cooperative continues to beef up state news reports, despite staff reductions and budget pressures shared with the industry.

     So, the AP is following the same path as other businesses, with one exception. They're demanding much more from their employees, but unlike many large industries, they are not making record profits.

[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this blog, which will begin year number five in November.]

Renovation



     Detail of the newly renovated building at the corner of Madison Avenue and Commerce Street in Downtown Montgomery, in which the nightclub Sous La Terre is located.

A Pop Quiz:

Q. Which causes more deaths per capita in the U.S., drugs or traffic accidents?

A. According to data from the CDC, drugs have now surpassed auto accidents, mostly because of an increase in prescription related overdoses and reactions (it has doubled), and a reduction in accident fatalities.

The Los Angeles Times has the story this morning.

(The story indicates Alabama is above the 12.7 national average....at 13.66 per 100,000 people...higher than either neighboring Mississippi or Georgia.)

And a Partridge Pumpkin in a pear tree.
Really.
Here's the story.

(Thanks to eagle eyed editor in Chiefly Jay!)

Higher Ed vs K-12

     I heard an interview with a Higher Ed booster not too long ago in which he called for more of the Alabama Education Budge pie for them and, by necessity, less for K-12.

     I wondered at the time if he could name an institution of Higher Education in Alabama at which students are asked to bring their own toilet paper, hold rummage sales and look for corporate donations to provide common school supplies.   
     That's a fact of life for many of Alabama's public K-12 schools.
    And then, this weekend, movement at both UAB in Birmingham and ASU in Montgomery toward construction of football stadiums, all during terrible financial times for most of the country.

    With the departures from AEA of Paul Hubbard and Joe Reed, and the GOP domination of the Legislature, there is sure to be a major push to change the pie in Higher Ed's favor during the 2012 Session.

Jefco (maybe) dodging the bullet

     The Jefferson County Commission has agreed to refinance some of its massive debt and raise sewer rates each year for three years to avoid bankruptcy.
     People like Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford went to jail because of the fraud that led to this financial mess, but I'll bet every time residents sign a check for the higher sewer rates, puffs of steam will come out of both ears.
     That's three years, or maybe a lifetime, of ill will.
     The Water Works Board stopped collecting sewer bills for the area sometime ago because they were getting all of the hate directed toward them.
     Not much customers can do except move out or stay mad. At one point every resident of the County was going to be billed...even those who are not connected to the sewer system. That hurt too, though you could make the argument that residents also pay for roads even if they never own a car.
     Bankruptcy is still a possibililty, so no popping of champagne corks there yet.
    

Orderly Conduct

     How can "disorderly conduct" laws still be on the books? It is such an undefined statute that it allows police, like this one in Atlanta, to arrest almost anyone almost anywhere! 

      The Atlanta officer had made 38 arrests in five months, and 27 of them them were for..surprise...disorderly conduct! He's being reprimanded.

    

On Second Thought....

     The Cherokee Nation is reconsidering an earlier decision to revoke the citizenship of several hundred "freedmen", black descendants of slaves "owned" by The Cherokee, reports an Oklahoma newspaper.
     The tribe had been under great pressure from the Federal Government, which threatened to end HUD assistance if the tribal court decision stood.

WWJD

So your wife or husband has Alzheimer's? Divorce her and get a fresh start. So says Pat Robertson.

Death Penalty Stand

     The relatives of the black man killed recently in what Mississippi prosecutors say was a hate crime do not want the white teens who are charged to face the death penalty.
     Perhaps a textbook example of a principled stand.

[AND: Although Texas executes the largest number of inmates, Alabama has the highest use of the death penalty per capita, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.]

Alabama's Federal Tax Teat

     For at least 25 years, perhaps many more, Alabama has gotten more back from the Feds than state residents sent to D.C. in taxes.
     In fact, in all but a couple of years, Alabama has been in the top 10 states which get a good return on investment.*
     Alabama Tea Party members should be hoping the Feds keep spending!

     Yet members of the so-called "super committee"---granted what some say are unconstitutional powers to make budget decisions---suggest  cutting 1.2 Trillion in spending isn't enough. They want to slice more from federal spending.
     The committee has a brand new web site soliciting input from the public. How should the budget deficit and U.S. debt problems be solved?     
     But the point it this: residents of states like Alabama that take more back from D.C. than they send, can't complain when the committee's decision hurt their already slashed state's budgets.

*The most recent The Tax Foundation report was in 2004

#*!%$(@ TEAM!!!

     The free speech rights of football fans are in question this morning. Yes, they can wear shirts with crude messages about an opponent, but they shouldn't. That's the message from the West Virginia coach to fans, according to a story in the L.A. Times.

     Football fans here in the South are much more genteel that all that....we just poison trees.

    This Summer, stricter penalties go into effect for blue bumpers stickers in Tennessee.  The sponsor says that's not a violation of the 1st Amendment:

  

"When you get into crossing the line so to speak you do not have a right to impose your speech on other people."

                                          TN State Representative Gary Moore, (D) Joelton



    
     Alabama banned obscene bumper stickers in 2003. 
     A similar South Carolina law was recently used to file charges against a women whose truck hitch includes a pair of plastic, er , bull parts. I'm not sure which is funnier: the story, or the fact that The Huffington Post used a pixilated photo.
     So just keep your potty mouth and pen and football T-shirt and truck accessories to yourself!

Teen Driving

     Is there a dark side to the state laws that have restricted teen drivers in Alabama and many other states?

     A report out  this morning shows on the unexpected increase in fatal accidents involving 18 and 19 year old drivers at the same time fatal wrecks involving younger drivers dropped. Have we just pushed off  the dangerous driving years to older teens?

9-11, a beer-selling opportunity

     I missed it the first time around when Anheuser Busch aired a TV ad in 2002 that uses their clydesdale horses to bow down to New York City (to sell beer) in honor of 9-11.. They aired it a second time on Sunday's 10th anniversary.
     "The ad struck a chord with people" says the story just linked.
          I'm sure.
          Why not just go ahead and have a $9.11 special on 12 packs.
          And what?  No Pentagon version? Or Shanksville?
          It ends with that terribly original line: "We'll never forget."
          Right.Sell more beer. Sell more beer. Sell more beer.
          Awful.

Delta Down

     It will be interesting to see if the pro-business mayors and councilmembers in places that lose service will agree with Delta's very bottom line decison today. Muscle Shoals, Alabama, is one of them.
     Delta's Decison is this: will fly only where we make money.

ALWAYS with us.

Americans in Poverty: Almost One in Six.

Here's the story.

Less "manly", more nurturing?

     A study of men in the Philippines find a dramatic testosterone drop in men after their wives give birth...especially in the men who are involved the most in their child's upbringing.
    The explanations range from an evolutionary trait that keeps fathers from straying, to a child-rearing emasculating effect on new Dads.
     The TIME story  linked above doesn't say whether or not men who adopted children had any drop in testosterone levels, but that would have been be a nice control group to measure.

Fast Cartoons = Poor Attention Spans?

     Companies like the TV Network Nickelodeon are in attack mode against a study out of Virginia that suggests that is the case.
     The study found kids who watch fast-action cartoons had trouble performing tasks a short time later. Kids who watched a slower moving PBS kids show did better. Sponge Bob bad! Big Bird good!

     Combine that with the recent report that found kids think cereals that have cartoon characters on the box taste better and you start wondering.
     Critics say the study had too small a sample (60 four year olds) to be meaningful, always a good way to critique a result you don't like. But weren't the cartoons of the 50's and 60's fast too? Road Runner anyone?

MMMM # 162 The Breadth of Coverage

     The newspaper in Montgomery is one of those that carries USA Today's Sunday magazine insert. It's a competitor to the "Parade" magazine that generations of readers grew up with.

     Maybe I haven't been paying enough attention, but either recently or just yesterday morning, the magazine joined the rest of the newspaper publishing world and shrunk to not much bigger than the coupon inserts.

     All of this diminishing started in the Mid-2000's, and it became a sure thing in January of last year when The New York Times joined the parade, cutting 1.5 inches in its width and eliminating 250 jobs at a printing plant at the same time. (No, I can't quite see how the two are related either. How would it take fewer people to print a paper just because it is 1.5 inches less wide?)

     The symbolism of newspapers shrinking in size at the same time they diminished in profitability and, some would argue, importance, has been impossible to miss.

     TV pictures during the same times have gotten much larger (at least the receivers have), though I'll let someone else do that analysis.

     Papers still have not managed to make their profits in the digital/online world come even close to what they were making back in the old days. Classified income? Gone. Subscribers? Heading out the door.

     The Times new editor started work this past week...the first female to hold the post in 160 years. I'm still on my personal boycott of the paper because of the way they handled their online pay-wall implementation. True, a very tiny protest, but a little appreciate for the people I sent their way with links might have been nice. Or at least an answer to my email. (-:

[ALSO: Regular reader and commentator Kevin point out a fascinating study conducted in Kentucky that finds analysis of news coverage can predict future events...kinda. He sends a link to a paper in England, though I'm sure there will be a lot of coverage in the U.S. too. Thanks Kevin!]

[AND: Read Anniston Star Editor Bob Davis's editorial about the responsibility of journalists. He hit it out of the park.]

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

9-11

The 2011 Cherokee War in Alabama

     This story didn't get a lot of attention here in Alabama when it broke ten days ago, though the topics of slavery and Native American tribes would seem to make it relevant in Alabama, especially since the Cherokee Nation played a significant role in state history.
     The Cherokee tribal government has sent letters to thousands of its members, expelling them from the tribe, because the membership of those "freedmen" was based on their ancestors being held as slaves by Cherokee members before the Civil War.

     The U.S. expelled the Cherokees from Alabama ("The Trail of Tears"), but before that, the tribe had extensive land holdings in Northeast Alabama.
     The tribe is still active in that part of the state.
     As a result of the tribe's action involving the Freedmen, HUD has halted federal housing assistance to Cherokee tribal members.

The Judge Changes His Mind

     A North Alabama judge who is now retired has written to Governor Robert Bentley, asking that he pardon a man he, the judge, sentenced to be executed.

     Amazing admission by the judge, that he had been serving on the bench only six months when the case came before him, and that hindsight has shown him it was a wrong decision based on other murder cases he tried.
     Bentley is a physician by profession, and he has only been in office eight months, but I'll bet the odds of his pardoning a death row inmate other than for new evidence proving the convict is innocent, are not great.
     Then again remember Fob James in his last days in office? Changing to life in prison the sentence of a woman who was set to be executed? A lot of people though it was First Lady Bobby James who convinced the Governor to do it.

Art in Motion -- Beach Creatures

     I am forever amazed at the beautiful things people can create, and a perfect example is in this video in The New Yorker.
     Would that I can make something as beautiful as this once in my life.

9-11

     The Internet Archive is making TV coverage of the day New York and Washington were attacked by terrorists available online. Three thousand hours of coverage from the major U.S. networks and other media.

     I must still have a hole in my heart from that day. I ache when I see the still photos. I watched them go up when I lived in New York.

     CBS Sunday Morning aired an interview with the head chef of Windows On The World, the restaurant at the top of The World Trade Center...to which I had once bought a gift certificate for my parent's wedding anniversary...and it was painful to watch. They died before the events of that September morning.

    I won't be spending much time on the archives, though I can see where they would be valuable for people too young at the time to understand. A good teaching tool  

Mother Nature's Storm

     So here's comes a Tropical Storm into the Gulf during a time when two areas of the Southeastern U.S. are desperate for some rain.Texas and Georgia.

     And what path does Lee take? Right up the middle. In fact Lee's path made the situation in Texas even worse by providing lots of wind to spread wildfires across East Texas, destroying hundreds of homes.

 I'm sure that any rain that managed to fall over South Central George will be welcomed, but the Alabama Counties with the worst drought, those in the South and Central East of the state, got the least rain.

     Here's the U.S. Drought Map for comparison sake. Could the steering be worse? Lee managed to avoid the very places the rain was most needed, and aggravated Texas's awful fires, promoting Governor Perry to take a breather from campaigning to head home.

                                                                                                                  

Yelling "Fire".

     The traditional exception given about free speech rights in the U.S. is that you can't yell "Fire, in a crowded theater" when there is no fire.
     In Mexico two people are in jail for tweeting a false report of gunfire at a school.

MMMM # 161 --about that MADD story...and Official Lies.

     A story on the website SLATE was the first to report that it was a liquor lobbying group that distributed a news release boasting about Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) getting a poor charity rating....yet a New Jersey columnist finds fault with both MADD and SLATE!

     Meanwhile, a website in Detroit went to their local MADD person for reaction and got, well, double talk as far as I can tell.

     People who work for cause organizations sometimes drink the (non-alcoholic) cool-aide and are willing to believe or say almost anything for the cause...be it to promote drinking or NON drinking.

 As always, it's up to the media to view everything with a questioning eye, no matter what the source. And to report the source when there's an apparent conflict, as there clearly was with the MADD news release distributed by the Anti-MADD lobbyists.

[ALSO: Did the NYC Mayor have an obligation to disclose the fact that his Deputy resigned because he had been arrested in Washington D.C. on a domestic violence charge? Hiz Honor sez no, and admits he actually concealed the arrest!]

[UPDATE: The NY Daily News is among those calling out the mayor for his arrogance.]

Happy Labor Day...and drive safely!

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

9-11

     A week before the 10th Anniversary, Federal officials have issued a warning about small planes being used for terrorist attacks...keep your eyes open.

Final Blooms of 2011

     Three blooms on my Night Blooming Cereus erupted in a display of beauty late Friday  night..fortunately one of the nights of the week when I am not deeply asleep at that time! The plants will come in off the deck soon as cold weather approaches.

     Always a great plant to photograph!