Doggy Right, Doggie Left

Brandy Dog, circa 1979

    No, not politically.....it's the side their tail tends to wag on...each side tells a different story about the pup's contentment (or lack thereof).
     Here's the story explaining how you can determine if your dog is happy or sad.

Snakophobia

     Thanks to the Birmingham News' Carol Robinson, we now ALL have something to fear this Halloween night!

 

It was a rattler. And it was in Chilton County. WAY too close.

Here's the story.

What plane crash???

     CNN report about a small plane crash at the Nashville Airport that left a man dead, but nobody at the airport noticed the crash and following fire for hours.

     And yes, the airport is staffed 24/7.

Not all of today's kids are lost.

Watch the student teach the lesson at the end.

CBS Sunday Morning included this report about the members of a Middle School football team in Michigan, who found themselves through an act of generosity.
Tissues mandatory.

MMMM #413 -- Facebook, The News Source

    

      The PEW folks are out with a study of Facebook, and they've determined that Facebook is a source of news for a significant percentage of people.
     This goes back to the definition of news. Any information that is new to you, is news to you...from Sunday's death of Lou Reed to the day's car bombings in Iraq to a TMZ gossip posting about a celebrity. 
     If you cast a wide enough net, virtually ever online location is a news site.
     The study does define news and news consumers:

"Facebook news consumers are defined as those who answered that they “ever get news or news headlines on Facebook.” News is defined as “information about events and issues that involve more than just your friends or family.”

    Most folks in the survey did NOT identify Facebook as a place where they go for news, but only a place they hear about news while they are there.

[The Monday Morning Media Memo is  a regular feature of TimLennox.com]

Lou Reed Dead at 71

The singer died following a liver transplant in May, according to Rolling Stone Magazine.

Saban Hater

   

  Forbes Magazine has an opinion piece by a writer who says Coach Saban's scold of students for leaving a game early includes this:

(it is why) why some people have a hard time embracing Coach Saban despite his coaching prowess.

     The professor described himself as someone who "loves the economics of the sports industry."
     Haters gonna hate.

Fair Operators Beware!

     That State Fair ride that injured five people..two of them critically...it's resulted in criminal charges against the fair operator! ABC has the story!

Numbers Game

45-10*

45-10*

Is that not the first time ever both teams won by the same lopsided score?

*Alabama over Tennessee
*Auburn over Florida Atlantic

Uh, not a single Deep South City

     The real estate website Zillow has ranked what they consider the "best Trick or Treat" cities in the U.S., and managed not to include a single Deep South city.

 

     Zillow is located in Seattle, about as far away from the South as you can get, so I suppose it is an out of sight, out of mind situation.

NOT MY FAULT!

     Maryland's Attorney General at teen drinking party, asked if he should have stopped the drinking: "how is that relevant to me?"
    The Democrat, who is (was?) running for Governor next year, stopped by the party to speak with his teen son who was at the party.
     When the media asked the AG about the drinking..."not my problem" seemed to be the answer.
      If he can't be Governor, maybe he can sell himself as the world's worst babysitter?

The story reports:

parents (had) laid down a set of ground rules preventing the teenagers from driving, taking girls behind closed bedroom doors and drinking hard alcohol. Two fathers were also put on chaperon duty each night.

     Gee, tough rules. You can drink alcohol, just stick to beer and wine?
                                  Don't close the bedroom doors..but the den or bathroom is fine?

###

PLUS one of the contractors being questioned before Congress today about Obamacare launch problems; Did you ever tell the government there were problems? We didn't see that as our job.

Confederate Flag Controversy, well NORTH of the M.D. Line

   

Confederate Monument in Montgomery, AL

     USA Today reports on a controversy in upstate New York. A college student hangs a confederate flag in his dorm window, with predictable results.
     He might want to know how many New York State residents died in the Civil War to defeat that flag.
     Then again he's from North Carolina, so maybe he doesn't care?

During the entire war, New York provided more than 370,000 soldiers to the Union armies. Of these, 834 officers were killed in action, as well as 12,142 enlisted men. Another 7,235 officers and men perished from their wounds, and 27,855 died from disease. Another 5,766 were estimated to have perished while incarcerated in Southern prisoner-of-war camps.^[1]

                                                                                                              Source: Wikipedia

Really? You Still Spank Your kids?

     Another study has found a link between children who are spanked and later aggressive behavior. 
     U.S. News and World Report has the details.

MMMM #412-- Please tell me there will be no collectors calling this poor man!

    

      Lot of reports out of Sarasota, Florida, about a man who spread some of his fiance's ashes at an eyewear store...one she had some connection to...causing the panicky authorities to close down the mall and call out every law enforcement agency in 100 miles.
     This local report indicates charges are not expected, but others have suggested the authorities may try to recover the cost of the police and fire action from the man.
     SOMEBODY! Call them and tell them what a terrible idea that is, if for no other reason that the bad PR!
    Chalk it up to an exercise. Then go back to the station.
    As you were. 

###

     The headline yesterday brought back memories from a sad chapter in the Birmingham Zoo's history. It read:

4 Month Old Baby Rhino Dies


     The death at The Montgomery Zoo brought me back to the death of two other animals at the Birmingham Zoo, and a scandal that engulfed the institution in 1978.
     An adult male hippo and it's child died as zoo workers tried to load them onto a truck for transport to another zoo.
     As I recall there was a revelation during the city court trial that the Zoo Director, Bob Truett, had used a cattle prod on the animals.
     Folks who lived in Birmingham back then may remember that he got into more hot water later for scheduling a talk for Zoo employees about the nudist camp he ran.
     Truett once unintentionally listed the Zoo's number in a brochure for the zoo..or maybe it was vis versa.
     Course the animals were neked, so what was the problem?


[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of TimLennox.com.]

Crime, Medicine, and Teaching Too.

“If policemen and doctors would just do their jobs, we wouldn’t have any crime or any death. Look, I know you cops like hanging out at Dunkin Donuts most of the day. I know you doctors like playing golf every afternoon. But if you want to keep your cushy jobs, you’re going to have to step up and show us some RESULTS to justify your pay.
If a police department has more than three crimes per month committed in its jurisdiction, funding for the department will be cut, and some police officers will have to be fired until the crime rate goes down. If a two or more patients under a doctor’s care die (for any reason) in a single year, fifty-percent of that doctor’s salary will be garnished by the government, and he will risk losing his medical license if the survival rates do not improve.
Now, I already hear you complaining. “I’m a police officer in a dangerous area. We risk our lives each day, and we can’t afford to lose funding or manpower.” Or, “I’m a doctor who specializes in treating cancer patients and the elderly. I work as hard as I can to keep them alive against incredible odds.”
Well, guess what? Nobody forced you to become a police officer or a doctor. Get with the program, or get out of the field."

—	What If We Spoke to Police Officers and Doctors the Way We Speak to Teachers? (via cloama)

Suit against Harper Lee Museum. By Harper Lee.

     Yup. The state's best know author is suing the museum for using her likeness and name to see stuff without sharing the wealth...with her.
     This seems to be a fight more originating with her caretakers than with the 87 year old author, who has been in ill health.

To quote Atticus Finch from the movie script, in his closing arguments: 

 
" To begin with, this case should never have come to trial."

My retirement home.

This much-photographed penthouse in Brooklyn has come on the market.

• 3 bedrooms

• 3.5 baths

• 6,800 sq. ft.

 And you'll never have to ask what time it is.
$18-Million
Here's the full listing.

To Do Their Duty.

     Does anyone anywhere believe the lame excuses of the scoutmasters who destroyed a million+ year old rock formation in a State Park in Utah? Really?
     Watch the video, read the story. Is this is the quality of scout leaders in The Boy Scouts of America?
     Thankfully, the BSA has blasted their actions.
     Who will defend them? Anyone? 

[UPDATE: No, nobody is defending them, bu the NY Daily News reports one of the scout "leaders" has filed suit a few weeks before his stunt describing  himself as disabled from a car accident.]

Retirement? What's that?

     An increasing number of 65+ year old Americans are in the work force..3% more in the past three tears.
     And you can guess why...the Great Recession.
     Gallup has the latest numbers.

I hate snakes, and I'm not fond of fish.....

So THIS thing would plainly freak me out....

.......and oarfish can get twice as big, according to the KTLA-TV story.

[UPDATE: A SECOND oar fish washed up on 10-18-13!]

     Preliminary results from an audit of Alabama State University have been released by Governor Bentley's office, and perhaps the most damning allegation is that the auditors were blocked in their investigation.
  

      The audit also claims to have found instances of board members using their influence to have family members hired for ASU work.
     The Governor is forwarding the results of the audit to the Alabama Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney's office for consideration. Some people could be going to jail by the time this ends.
     The lawyer for ASU and Interim President William Harris are pushing back this evening with a release of their own, denying any violations of law.  They also say Bentley violated a written agreement not to release the audit results until ASU officials had seen them.
     Bentley may seek the removal of board members Marvin Wiggins and Elton Dean after the audit claimed Dean arranged for payments to a women with whom he is alleged to have had a relationship...and Wiggins for arranging for the hiring of numerous family members.
     The whole ASU mess started after the building of the University's new $62-Million football stadium and hiring of a new President Joseph Silver, a president who was paid almost $700k to leave months after he arrived, after he said ASU officials were refusing to share financial information with him.
      All of this has the scent or stink, if you will, of a racial conflict. State Representative and ASU CEO John Knight told the Montgomery Advertiser last week:

Alabama Attorney General's Offices

“Let me tell you what it is (people are saying): There’s no way that African Americans in Montgomery, Ala., can manage that kind of money ($250 million) without taking some,” Knight said. “That’s basically what you hear.” 

      Virtually everyone on the ASU side is African-American. 
      Virtually everyone on the Bentley side is white. 
      This is Montgomery, Alabama, and there is no way it will not be perceived as racial.

MMMM #411 -- Erase that video or face arrest!

    

     That was the order given a news employee a TV station in Alabama by security guards at a Federal Facility.
     The photog had been given an assignment to shoot video of signs that had been posted on doors at that facility. They informed the public that services were not available because of the government shutdown.
    After the employee had been shooting for a few minutes, the guards showed up, ordered him to stop reordering, and then, under the threat of arrest, ordered him to erase the video he had shot.
    The videographer couldn't get his bosses on the phone, and so unsure what to do, followed the guard's orders.
    I wish I were able to say more about this bizarre incident, but the information was given to me in confidence.
    However, if I should find myself in similar circumstances, I'll be posting the follow up to this MMMM from behind bars.

 ###

ALSO: Should newspapers feel some obligation to print letters to the editor (and how quaint is that, anyway!) from people who believe NASA space shots are all hoaxes, or who say gravity is just a theory? The L.A. Times has stopped publishing letters from readers who deny the climate-change/human connection. 

###

 AND: When reporting on an alleged crime involving a minor, does the media have a different obligation other than just reporting the facts? Did the North Alabama station in this story contribute to a fifteen year old's suicide? 

[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of TimLennox.com.]

Sunday Focus: TV News

    

     Who watches which local stations for news, and when?
     Companies spend millions trying to answer that question.
     Now PEW is out with a new report on local and cable news viewers, and there are some surprises. 
     Most significant: folks who watch FOX cable also watch MSNBC, and vis versa.
     Media experts had believed people chose a cable news outlet that best matched their own beliefs and stayed with them...but the new study found that is not the case.
     Also: viewers who are the heaviest news viewers tend to watch a lot of cable-TV news, not exactly a shock, but interesting. I'm confident if there were a local/state news channel that operated 24/7 it would attract more viewing hours by heavy news viewers than stations with only now and then newscasts too.

AND..may I welcome you to come by CBS 8 or ABC Montgomery in the morning starting at 5:00AM to join me, Jamie and Marcy for Alabama News Network Morning? Thanks!

President Obama Ditka has signed legislation slashing all social spending by half.

TIME magazine reports the former coach says he should have beaten Obama for U.S. Senate and saved the country.

No, not his exact words, but read the story here.

Sirens of the lambs

                


    Anti-meat art by Banksy, in The Meat District in NYC.

Quote of the day

    

One of his aides is arrested on money launder charges related to drugs and the Birmingham News reports:

Mayor Bell this evening declined comment saying he doesn't comment on personnel matters or legal issues involving personnel.

     Really? The buck in Birmingham apparently doesn't stop at the Mayor's desk. It stops at the policy an procedures manual. This is the perfect out for an elected official...if he's allowed to get away with it.

Rise of the (3rd Party) Machine

    Gallup finds the highest levels ever supporting formation of a third party in the U.S.

     More than half of the Republicans and almost half of the Democrats Gallup questioned support formation of a third party.
     Looks like the two party system is self-destructing.
     Then again, voters (at least in Alabama) re-elect the same old party regulars over and over. Or is the state making it too hard for third party candidates to qualify?

A documentary by The Center for Public Television has produced a civil rights documentary titled "Preserving Justice" that will air Monday at 6:00 PM on APT.

Watch the trailer here.

Here Come Da Heat...here come da HEAT!

     Big study of studies predicts a very hot US by the mid 2050's....with unprecedented heat waves.
     Oh joy.
     Buy power company stock, I suppose.

S.I. story about a 40 year old Alabama H.S. Football Death. Was it Murder?

     
     A well presented, visually interesting story from Sports Illustrated about a game in Anniston, Alabama, 40 years ago in which a player died.

     Was it intentional? I still don't know.

     Were there coaches in Alabama who would have ordered especially brutal hits against a black player?
     I wasn't in Alabama yet. What do you think?

Just in TIime! New Money for New X-Mas Stuff!

The New $100 bill circulates on Tuesday.

Even earlier than before?

     I say this every year, but are Christmas decorations out earlier and earlier every year? I saw the trees above this weekend..almost a month before Halloween!

     And just in time, the U.S. Treasury will begin circulating a new $100 bill  filled with security features to make it harder than ever to counterfeit.

MMMM # 410 -- One year of 3-a-week newspapers..and a pay wall too.

   

    It's been a year since what were then the three largest daily newspapers in Alabama dropped all but three of their daily publications and went mostly online. 
     Depending on to whom you listen, it's either been a great success, or, in the words of a former Federal Prosecutor:

"Hell, we can’t even get good coverage of University of Alabama football anymore..."

     That quote is from the Poynter website, which marked the one-year anniversary with a story that includes coverage of the other city where the papers' owner cut back to three days a week, New Orleans. The story's conclusion? The markets where it happened are now media "fractured".
     All four papers have sold or are trying to sell their news buildings.
     That decision made The Montgomery Advertiser the largest daily paper in the state, and it still is. But it instituted a pay-wall a year ago next month, and named a new editor.
     Next March will mark the third year since The N.Y. Times built its own paywall.

[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of Tim Lennox.com]

A Visual Relic of The American Civil War

Another battlefield, Chancellorsville.

     Smithsonian features an article about an oak tree reduced to a shattered stump by gunfire during the longest continuously fought close-in battle of the war.
     It was a witness to and victim of the ferocity of the fighting.

WaPo Analysis

Just how did we get into this mess of inaction in D.C.?

Here's an analysis by The Washington Post*, though it is not an especially hopeful piece. It discusses....

"...a new normal, as confrontation remains commonplace and true compromise rare."

*...and because it is in that paper, some of the folks coming by this site won't read it. Sigh.

Sunday Focus: Alabama GOP kicks state Demos

Alabama Democrats: Crumbling From Within

Statements from Alabama Republican Party Chairman Bill Armistead -

The Alabama Democrat Party, a leaderless party with fewer and fewer followers, will debate a bylaw change supported by Joe Reed, a longtime black political activist, that would in effect tell voters in many counties they are not welcome in Barack Obama's Alabama Democrat Party any longer.

Alabama Democrats should no longer be called that. Instead, they should be called "Blackbelt and Urban" Democrats because that will be the makeup of their party's representation if this bylaw is accepted.

Joe Reed and his people want to eliminate representation in their state committee from counties that overwhelmingly rejected Barack Obama and his liberal party in the 2012 election and move those committee membership seats to counties where Barack Obama won or was competitive.

Folk's that is just a handful of counties.

On the other hand, Alabama Republicans represent all of Alabama's 67 counties, with even counties that never vote Republican receiving guaranteed representation on our State Executive Committee. We Republicans believe our policies of smaller government, personal responsibility and traditional values are universal and every Alabamian should have the ability to join our party.

In the end, Joe Reed and his team are going to hasten what is already happening, the complete and utter regionalization of a political party that once dominated the state.

As Chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, I say to all Alabamians, but especially those of you in counties the Alabama Democrat Party does not care about, join us if you want a voice in your community and your government.

Conservative Democrat elected officials have left the Alabama Democrat Party in droves to join the Alabama Republican Party. We continue to invite conservative Democrats to join us if they subscribe to our conservative philosophy.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     Of course the Alabama GOP has tried to preserve it's own party purity too. 

     Mike Hubbard told a Young Republican group recently that Democrats would be disguising themselves as Republicans to run in the Primary Election next year.

     And there was the recent dustoff over College Republican Stephanie Petelos and her support for gay marriage. The party considered a by-law blocking someone from being able to: 

“continue to serve on the steering committee if they publicly advocate a position contrary to the platform adopted at the Republican National Convention.”

 The change was rejected, but the fact that it go on the agenda for discussion shows the GOP has a pro-purity element too.

[UPDATE: the proposed change failed on Saturday.]

[The Sunday Focus is a regular feature of TimLennox.com]

You Don't Want to Know (What's in a Chicken Nugget)

     Some of it is chicken....say scientists who tested a random, very small sample. 
     The rest is...well, as they say, parts is parts.

Fake $cience

   

  I love a good scam done in the name of  exposing dishonesty, and that's exactly what the editors of the journal Science did.
     They sent a fake scientific paper to hundreds of supposed scientific journals for publication, and many of the lower tier publications readily agreed to publish it for a fee...even though it should have been readily apparent that the "study"was flawed in many ways.
     National Geographic has the story.

7 Days in May (October)

    

      That was the title of a movie about the military taking control of the government...in the U.S. 
     Now a talk show/ minister/idiot suggests it should happen because of....Obama! (of course).
     Is he violating some law against promoting insurrection? 
   Nah, cause he is praying to God to make it happen, and we all know prayer is protected.

"I believe there are noble leaders in our military that love the republic and love everything we stand for. And they could seize the government."

On second thought, maybe a visit by the secret service? FBI? The Pope?

[Thanks to Editor-of-all-things-spiritual Jay for locating this story.]